Learning from the DevoLab #1: How devolution can address health inequalities
Think tank: Institute for Government
Author(s): Harriet Shaw; Sarah Routley; Akash Paun
December 9, 2025
This report from UK think tank the Institute for Government looks at how devolved powers have been used to address health inequalities.
Although health is not a devolved function within England, many regional mayors have identified addressing health inequalities as an important objective and have taken action to improve population health, using a range of devolved powers and levers.
As part of its devolution agenda, the government now plans to confer a new statutory health improvement and health inequalities duty on all mayoral strategic authorities.
There is therefore growing interest in how mayors can use their powers, budgets and authority to close disparities in healthy life expectancy and other health metrics between different demographic groups and places.
So how can devolution help to address this challenge? What innovations have been tried at the regional level to make progress in this policy domain? What have been the results of these interventions? And what are the lessons that mayors and mayoral strategic authorities can learn from each other?
To answer these questions, this policy briefing presents three short case studies of how devolved powers have been used to address health inequalities, drawing on presentations delivered at a July 2025 DevoLab event hosted by the Institute for Government, in partnership with Impact on Urban Health. The case studies discussed are: ‘Beds for Babies: Safe Space to Sleep’, in South Yorkshire – a programme that provides free beds and bedding to children aged five and under ‘Working Well’, in Greater Manchester – a family of services designed to support people with poor health who are at risk of, or are experiencing, long-term unemployment ‘Taking a “health in all policies” approach’, in Greater London – a strategic framework that seeks to align levers across different policy domains to improve health outcomes.
This publication forms part of the IfG DevoLab, an Institute for Government platform dedicated to exploring and learning from the policy and governance innovations that devolution enables.
