Build back fairer: the COVID-19 Marmot review

‘Build Back Better’ has become the mantra. Important, but we need to Build BackFairer. The levels of social, environmental and economic inequality in society are damaging health and wellbeing. As the UK emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic it would be a tragic mistake to attempt to re-establish the status quo that existed before – a status quo marked in England, over the past decade, by a stagnation of health improvement that was the second worst in Europe, and by widening health inequalities. That stagnation, those social and regional health inequalities, the deterioration in health for the most deprived people, are markers of a society that is not functioning to meet the needs of its members. There is an urgent need to do things differently, to build a society based on the principles of social justice; to reduce inequalities of income and wealth; to build a wellbeing economy that puts achievement of health and wellbeing, rather than narrow economic goals, at the heart of government strategy; to build a society that responds to the climate crisis at the same time as achieving greater health equity.