Healthcare prioritisation and inequitable inequalities: why a child health perspective should be incorporated into the current NHS guidance

One of the main aims of the post-COVID National Health System (NHS) is to tackle inequalities in experience, access and health outcomes that compromised the health of the most vulnerable patients in the time of crisis.1 This aim suggests that in reducing the current care backlog for treatment, equity considerations should be traded off against efficiency when prioritising healthcare. Giving priority to categories of care or population groups is necessary to address preventable and undesirable health inequalities in keeping with Marmot’s proportionate universalist approach to reducing inequalities in health,2 and reflects our moral intuitions to ensure that those who have already experienced significant misfortune are not further disadvantaged. Equity considerations regarding healthcare prioritisation are currently framed by socioeconomic and ethnic health disparities. Supported by evidence3 showing the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on the health of ethnic minority and lower socioeconomic groups, these...
Source: Archives of Disease in Childhood - Category: Pediatrics Authors: Tags: Open access, COVID-19 Viewpoint Source Type: research