Pandemic ‘worsening inequalities’ for children in the north of England

The Northern Health Science Alliance (NHSA) report warns that the impact of the virus and restrictions introduced to control the pandemic made a “child health crisis unfolding in the north of England much worse”.

The report notes that pre-pandemic data on trends in inequalities in life expectancy at birth “reveal 20-year gap in life expectancy for girls growing up in areas with the highest life expectancies”.

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For girls living in the poorest areas of Leeds, life expectancy is 74.7 years compared with 95.4 for those living in the most affluent areas of Camden, north London.

The lowest life expectancy for boys is 68.3 years for those living in Blackpool compared with 95.3 years in Kensington and Chelsea.

“The neighbourhoods where children have the lowest life expectancy were in urban areas in the major cities of the North, including Leeds, Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool and Blackpool,” the report states.

It adds that this gap has increased due to growing levels of poverty in these areas caused by the pandemic.

While the report notes that the government is yet to release its child poverty indices for the period covering the pandemic, before it struck 27 per cent of children in the north of England were living in poverty before housing costs and 33 per cent after housing costs, compared with 20 per cent before housing costs and 30 per cent after housing costs in the UK as a whole.

Children in the north experienced greater lost learning during national lockdowns compared with children living in the south of England, the report adds.

Research by the NHSA shows that during the UK’s first lockdown, across primary and secondary schools, 14 per cent of children in schools in the northern regions were receiving four or more pieces of offline schoolwork per day, compared with a country-wide average of 20 per cent.

By the second half of the 2020 autumn term, primary pupils in the North East and North West experienced the greatest loss in reading in the country, of 2.0 and 1.9 months respectively, it adds.

The NHSA has issued a series of 15 recommendations to the government including proposals to increase Universal Credit for struggling families and spending made available for schools to support disadvantaged pupils.

It also calls for the commissioning of maternity and early years services to take into account the impact of the pandemic in already disadvantaged areas.

Responding to the report, Purnima Tanaku, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association, backed calls for greater investment in early years services in the north of England.

She said: “Children in deprived areas have suffered the most throughout the pandemic but this latest report shows the North-South divide is widening. Our recent closures report highlighted that the rate of nurseries closing for financial reasons is higher in areas of deprivation, particularly in northern areas and this is a serious concern.

“Money invested in early years education gives the best return because it saves more money having to be spent later in a child’s life. No child must be left to fail, all children must be given the best chance to succeed.”