Mental health, substance misuse and medical workforce recruitment — despite the benefits of living on the coast, England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, has said more needs to be done to address health inequalities coastal communities face.
In his annual report (see below), Professor Whitty calls for a national strategy to address the repeated health problems, saying if nothing was done to tackle them vigorously and systematically ‘there would be a long tail of preventable ill-health which will get worse as current populations age’.
The Isle of Wight Council’s policy and scrutiny committee for health and social care discussed the ‘very interesting and revealing factors’ earlier this week and echoed issues needed to be addressed.
Deprivation, mental health and alcohol and drug abuse
Problems like deprivation, mental health and alcohol and drug abuse were identified to be considerable health challenges on the Island and in other coastal communities.
Other key drivers to improve health and wellbeing were said to be wider than health like housing, education, employment and transport.
Whitty: Needs a much larger response effort
Professor Whitty said those issues should not be faced, and fixed, by local communities alone and needed a much larger response effort.
Welcoming the report, Cllr Michael Lilley said the issues raised in the report were a reality on the Island and the report should be used to argue for more resources.
He said it was not often a national report supports everything they have been saying and campaigning for.
Funding needed for streams for coastal communities
Cllr Lilley said funding streams for coastal communities need to be explored to help address some of the issues.
Professor Chris Whitty said coastal communities had been overlooked and as a result, limited data was known about the health and wellbeing of those areas.
Whitty: Health and wellbeing of coastal residents has ‘long been neglected and overlooked
He said while the focus over the summer has been directed towards visitors choosing to stay on the coast, it is important to remember it is also home to millions of people whose health and wellbeing has ‘long been neglected and overlooked’.
The Island’s director of public health, Simon Bryant, said he was part of a south-east group to take the recommendations of Professor Whitty’s report forward.
Cllr Lilley also suggested asking Conservative Isle of Wight MP, Bob Seely, and other important channels to use the report, to highlight issues and help with the solutions.
This article is from the BBC’s LDRS (Local Democracy Reporter Service) scheme, which News OnTheWight is part of. Read here to find about more about how that scheme works on the Island. Some alterations and additions may have been made by News OnTheWight. Ed
Image: Tom Wheatley under CC BY 2.0
