UK falls to third place in global Health Inclusivity Index

• More than three in five (63%) people in the UK experience barriers to health inclusion
  
• People in UK, Canada and France face the longest waiting times to see a GP
  
• Health inclusivity scores fall worldwide with addition of lived experience data in Economist Impact’s Health Inclusivity Index, supported by Haleon - exposing glaring policy-practice gap in wealthy countries
  

LONDON, Nov. 20, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- More than three in five (63%) people in the UK experience health exclusion according to phase two of the Economist Impact’s Health Inclusivity Index, released today. The Index - which measures the extent and experience of health inclusion across 40 countries and 42,000 people worldwide - reveals that the UK’s score has fallen by 13% this year, slipping from first to third place in the global rankings.

Phase two of the Index, supported by consumer health company Haleon, identifies lack of available appointments; inconvenient hours; distance and cost of travel; and lack of trust in healthcare services as the most widely reported barriers globally. In the UK, while healthcare services are widely available, with only 9% saying they’ve been denied access to services versus 19% of people globally, the data shows that significant barriers remain.

The Index, which this year includes the lived experience of global populations, reveals that only in Canada and France do people have to wait longer to see a GP than in the UK. Just a third of people (35%) in the UK, France (34%) and Canada (31%) say they could see a doctor within 24 hours, compared with 88% of people in Turkey, 87% of people in Rwanda and two-thirds of people (67%) globally. Nearly one in five in the UK (17%) say they would have to wait longer than a week to see their GP versus 7% globally.  ​

This barrier to healthcare accessibility is mirrored across the UK’s healthcare landscape with fewer than a quarter of people in the UK (23%) saying they can access dental services within 24 hours –versus 56% globally – while only 24% of people in the UK state they can access sexual health services within this timeframe (compared with 51% globally).  

The UK is not alone in falling down the Health Inclusivity Index rankings as the inclusion of lived experience data in phase two of the Index has seen health inclusivity scores deteriorate across 85% of the countries surveyed, with all but one country scoring below 80 out of 100. The declining scores year-on-year expose a gap between governments’ ambitions of delivering inclusive health policies and systems and the reality of people’s experience of them. High-income countries display the largest gaps, with an average 18-point difference between their scores on inclusive health policies and experience.