That ten year gap. If you are poor and poorly educated and live near the centre of Southend, the probability is that you will live ten years less than if you live in Leigh or Thorpe bay.
There are over 30 factors involved, including smoking, drinking, poor diet, obesity
and so on, and Leigh Liberal Democrat councillor Alan Crystall challenged the cabinet decision that a report to be produced by "Southend Together", a so called "Local Strategic Partnership", should proceed to the Health and Well Being Partnership Board, which has two Tory members.
He made it clear that all members of the council of all parties have a duty of care to all their residents, and that each of many reports had to come to the all party Health scrutiny committee for their input, rather than ending up with a politically unbalanced few. There also needed to be short, medium and long term proposals to reduce health inequalities.
The health scrutiny committee agreed with this, with a message to the cabinet that a proper scrutiny path needed to be followed at all stages when producing the
educational and health proposals for the deprived areas of Southend.
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