CPOC has joined over 100 not-for-profit organisations as part of the RCP launched Inequalities in Health Alliance. The Inequalities in Health Alliance is a coalition of organisations with an interest in improving the health of the UK who have come together to campaign for a cross-government strategy to reduce health inequalities.

In February 2020, following the publication of Health Equity in England: the Marmot review 10 years on, the RCP wrote to the prime minister along with other Medical Royal Colleges and the Royal Colleges of Midwifery and Nursing. They urged him to adopt the recommendations of the report and go a little further. In October 2020 the alliance wrote to the prime minister again to ask the government to do three things:

• develop a cross-government strategy to reduce health inequalities
• commence the socio-economic duty, section 1 of the Equality Act 2010
• adopt a ‘child health in all policies’ approach.

"A cross-government strategy is required because health inequality is the result of many and varied factors. As the Secretary of State for Social Services said in his foreword to the 1980 Black Report, “the influences at work in explaining the relative health experience of different parts of our society are many and interrelated.” All parts of government and public services need to adopt reducing health inequality as a priority."

Find out more on the alliance here.