Toggle menu

    Foreword

    Alice Wiseman, Gateshead Director of Public Health 

    Welcome to my annual report for 2020/21.  

    What a year it has been. We have experienced a time that no one could ever imagine as the pandemic swept across the world and took its place in our lives. We have all been in the same storm but we have not all been in the same boat. Covid-19 has highlighted and exacerbated the growing gulf between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' across the UK. 

    Life has been hard for everyone but imagine if your home was overcrowded, or you had little or no outside space, you struggled to afford to heat your home, feed your family, provide a laptop so your kids didn't fall behind at school or you were furloughed or lost your job, it is likely that the pandemic has been even tougher for you than for others.

    Your living conditions, the type of job you do or your pre-existing state of health may have increased your chances of catching Covid or the severity of the illness once infected.

    In my last report as Director of Public Health in Gateshead, , I focused on the inequalities that existed, before the pandemic, and asked the question 'how were we doing?' I found many examples of positive practice and innovative initiatives across local communities and statutory, voluntary and community sector partners. However, I also found many indications of continuing and worsening inequalities including:

    • over half of people and families in Gateshead were either just managing or just coping, with more than 30% in need or in vulnerable situations
    • the combination of austerity and increasing need meant it was becoming ever more difficult for all services to respond with the help and support people require
    • people were struggling with Universal Credit, particularly the five week wait for the first payment
    • the North East of England had seen the starkest increase in the country of children living in poverty, a 6.5 percentage points increase over the past four years alone, leaving families in the region ill equipped to cope.

    Gateshead Council, and partners, were already keenly aware of the need to pursue a strategic approach to tackle continuing inequalities and published the Gateshead Health and Wellbeing Strategy: 'Good Jobs, homes, health and friends' at the beginning of 2020, just before the pandemic hit.

    We adopted the six policy objectives set out in the 'Marmot Review: Fair Society, Healthy Lives' (2010) (opens new window) as a framework to help deliver our vision of making Gateshead a place where everyone thrives: 

    • Give every child the best start in life.  
    • Ensure a healthy standard of living for all.  
    • Enable all children, young people and adults to maximise their capabilities and have control over their lives.  
    • Create and develop healthy and sustainable places and communities.  
    • Create fair employment and good work for all.  
    • Strengthen the role and impact of ill health prevention 

    These remain the building blocks of our approach to tackling inequalities. However, it is vital that we understand the impact of Covid-19 on each individual objective.

    I want to use this year's report to focus on the relationship between Covid-19 and inequalities in Gateshead, identify how existing inequalities have been compounded, or new pressures created and whether, as a result, we need to alter our approach or the priorities within our strategy.

    The timescale for this report is March 2020 to March 2021. As such, it doesn't cover the whole pandemic which is very much still with us as I write.

    Everyone who lives, works or goes to school in Gateshead has been affected by the enormity of the pandemic. I don't want this report to be solely about my experiences but to tell Gateshead's Covid-19 story through the voices of our communities and partners. Specifically, I want to:

    • Record local people's and professionals' experiences of the pandemic in their own words. This was a year we must not forget. It is only right that we recognise the devastating impact that it has had, and the tremendous efforts made by people who came together to tackle it.
    • Acknowledge that we are battling a syndemic - concurrent pandemics of Covid-19, discrimination and disadvantage, which interact, cluster and exacerbate the burden of disease.
    • Call for revitalised and re-focused action to tackle inequalities. This has never been more important than it is now. 

    "A syndemic describes "two or more diseases" that synergise to make each other worse and include societal as well as biological drivers of poor health. Discrimination and disadvantage existed long before the coronavirus, yet the pandemic has clearly exposed how both result in poor health and drive health inequalities." Public Policy Projects, Institute of Health Equity, 2021 (opens new window) 

    In the space of this report, I can only touch on a fraction of the stories people have to tell but, together, they form an invaluable bank of experience and learning to shape our way forward.

    Far too many people have suffered bereavement, loss and hardship, on an unprecedented scale. So many people have worked tirelessly and selflessly to do what needed to be done to get us through the worst. We owe it to them not to let the learning from Covid-19 go to waste as we work towards rebuilding and recovery.

    President Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel famously said in 2008: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before." (Emanuel R, Interview to the Wall Street Journal, November 19, 2008)

    I want to believe that we now have a real opportunity, based on this shared learning and hard-won knowledge, to truly come together to take action to reduce inequalities and make Gateshead a place where everyone thrives. 

    Chapter 1: Covid inequalities and the wider determinants of health