Our public health system is currently in the spotlight and the chancellor has promised to provide ‘whatever is needed’ to tackle the spread of coronavirus. Outside of this immediate crisis we need to keep public health in the headlines, and in the government’s long-term investment plans if we’re going to address some fundamental issues in our communities. 

It has long been recognised that health and wellbeing is influenced by much more than what happens in doctors’ surgeries and hospitals; it is inseparably linked to the social and physical environments in which we live and, currently, far too much of our health is determined by where we are born and our financial circumstances.