Report

Healthy places, inclusive growth: Realising the potential of devolution

This report from UK think tank the Growth and Reform Network looks at how national policy can help realise the potential of devolution.

Population health is currently a major policy concern in the UK. At an individual level, health is a fundamental precursor to economic participation, and poor health has consistently been recognised as a drag on national and local economic growth. Many of the tools to address ill health lie outside health policy, and the deepening and widening devolution of powers to regional mayors offers new opportunities to address poor health through economic levers.

This policy report focuses on the role of national government in creating the systemic conditions for integrating health and economic development at place level. It draws on new insight from a comprehensive evidence review of 144 studies from high-income countries on how socioeconomic policies shape health outcomes. The evidence review is published alongside this paper.

As regional institutions are maturing and building their internal capacity, this report highlights the ways that national policy could support local and regional governments across the UK to embed health outcomes in their economic development and growth strategies to address place-based disparities and ensure that growth is inclusive. While the bill is concentrated on England, this report also considers the experience of places in Scotland and Wales as they, too, look to address health through socioeconomic policy and the greater devolution of powers.

The devolution agenda offers an unprecedented opportunity to mainstream understanding of the interrelationship between economic development and health into embedded practice and governance. If fully realised, this shift could help unlock more inclusive, resilient local economies and create the conditions for healthier lives across the UK. Yet at local level, the practicalities of integrating health and economic development have proved challenging. National policy, therefore, has a critical role to play in supporting institutional and cultural shifts across sectors.