What the Community is saying about Levelling Up Health:

 ‘Just read this report – absolutely brilliant. Straight to the point. Evidenced. A call to action.’ Max Jones, Managing Partner, Agilisys

‘ The event was extremely informative and gave a great deal of confidence to us as a charity. We feel assured that significant consideration will be given to the voluntary sector and the part it can play in the delivery of preventative support and services. Congratulations on the report.’ Melanie Wicklen, Chief Executive, Age UK Cambridgeshire

Business for health

A Business Coalition for a Healthier Nation was one of the key recommendations of The Health of the Nation Strategy published in February 2020. 

‘Business for Health’ -as it is now called- has been set up as a community interest company and was launched on 11 November in collaboration with MADWorld as part of Longevity Week.  It is supported with funding from Legal & General, Phoenix Group, AXA Health, UK Research & Innovation, Centre for Ageing Better and Health Foundation. More details are on the website here.

It is a business-led coalition of socially responsible employers, purchasers, investors and innovators.  Its aim is to enhance the health and economic resilience of the UK, catalysing and facilitating business contributions to reduce health inequalities and add five years to healthy life expectancy.

Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Health and Care, says:   “I am delighted that a Business Coalition for a Healthier Nation is being formed – as employers, investors and innovators, business will make vital contributions to reduce future pandemic risks through prevention, improve healthy life expectancy and build economic resilience in communities across our nation. If this pandemic has taught us anything it's that our health and prosperity are completely interlinked. I look forward to working with them in the future.”

Business for Health CIC is seen as valuable by two related government initiatives - the UK Longevity Council and the Government’s Ageing Society Grand Challenge with its £300m investment fund to maximise business contributions to HLE+5.

The coalition is supported by a growing number of business and academic leaders:

Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever who has since co -founded Imagine, a business collective for global systems change, supports the Coalition and says: “Absolutely crucial what you are starting”.

Professor Baron Peter Piot KCMG, Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine;  Founding Executive Director of UNAIDS;  Special Advisor to the President of the European Commission on research and innovation for Covid-19, supports our work too. He says: ”Covid-19  illustrates how important it is to prevent the development of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease through healthy lifestyles. We live in a completely obesogenic environment. In order to have a better future for everybody, we need to not only work on our own health but also respect the health of the planet.  A risk management framework for health like we have in place for climate change seems essential.”

How to get involved

We are keen to hear from organisations who’d like to get involved in furthering the mission of ‘Business for Health’.  Please join our Register of Interest here and we will get in touch.

To inform Business for Health we held a series of online round tables on 5th, 11th, 14th and 19th May in collaboration with our strategic partner Longevity Leaders.

The Wrap-Up Summary on the final day of Longevity Leaders Virtual Conference on the 22nd May communicated core themes, ideas and areas of consensus from these Round Tables and outlined ‘What Next’. You can view the webinar below. The full report of the four round tables and summary can be accessed here.

Open Life Data

The APPG has formed an expert group, the ‘Open Life Data Task Group’, chaired by Lord O’Shaughnessy, to define what is needed to establish an open health system, drawing from other models like our Open Banking system and standards to harness data-intensive technologies to extend - and make more equal - the healthy longevity of British citizens across their life course. This was a key recommendation of The Health of the Nation Strategy published in February 2020.  See key papers from Gavin Starks, Taking Open Banking to Open Life, and Annemarie Naylor, Harnessing the Potential of Data to Deliver a Longevity Dividend.

Two task groups took place, on 2 November and 27 November, and these informed our responses (see here) submitted to the National Data Strategy consultation that closed on 9 December 2020. We are aiming to develop a framework by September 2021.

The overall goals of the task group are:

• explore how data-intensive technologies could make a positive contribution the health, wellbeing and life chances of all people equitably.

• propose solutions for innovating, scaling-up and leveraging these technologies across the private, public and academic sectors.

• ensure that digital health infrastructure and innovation support is fairly distributed and resilient, reducing inequalities in co-creation, access and outcomes.

• build public trust in the use of data for individual and collective health and social care purposes.

THE HEALTH OF THE NATION strategy

We launched The Health of the Nation: A Strategy for Healthier Longer Lives on 12th February with the support of Rt Hon Matt Hancock MP, Secretary of State for Health & Care (see his speech on GOV.UK)

See Rt Hon Matt Hancock MP, Secretary of State for Health and Care, Damian Green MP and APPGL chair, Tina Woods and Geoff Filkin, APPGL co-leaders and report co-authors, speak at our launch event

More than 500 came to the launch hosted by Ageing Research at King’s College London to hear the Health Secretary Matt Hancock, our chair Damian Green MP, our co-leaders and report co-authors Lord Filkin and Tina Woods, together with Professor Sir Robert Lechler, Senior Vice President/Provost (Health) and Executive Director of King’s Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre; Jennifer Dixon of The Health Foundation; Andy Briggs of The Longevity Council; Jon Ashworth, Shadow Secretary of State for Health; Lord Kerslake, Lord O’Shaughnessy, and many distinguished others.

listen to keynote speech and Interview with Rt Hon Matt hancock mp, secretary of state for health and care