On 23rd June 2025, CHAD and the Faculty of Public Health hosted this webinar with Dr David Walsh from the University of Glasgow.
David gave a powerful overview of his and Gerry McCartney’s new book ‘Social Murder? Austerity and Life Expectancy in the UK’, presenting the evidence of the impacts of the UK Government’s austerity policies on health and health inequalities.
David began by discussing how life expectancy is a marker of societal progress. However, in the UK, people in the 20% most deprived areas’ death rates are increasing. Therefore, there is a societal regression. The austerity programme has cut public spending, affecting vital public social services. Since the austerity programme, food banks have been normalised, child poverty has increased, healthy life expectancy is decreasing, and there is an increased rate of premature and low birth rates due to maternal stress. David emphasised that it is important to note that this is not just an issue within the UK. There are different forms of austerity in various countries. The evidence demonstrates that wherever austerity has been introduced, there are negative impacts on mortality rates.
David shared the following quote (attributed to Austin Bradford Hill) that “Health statistics represent people with the tears wiped off”. He explained that the evidence in the book is interspersed with real life stories of people affected by the policies.
The book also examines why this issue has been allowed to happen – and they argue there has been a dereliction of public health duty from many. Discussing what needs to happen next, David highlighted that the recommendations build on previous recommendations, key to which are: reversing cuts to social security, public/social services investment, and that evidence-based measures must be adopted to narrow societal and health inequalities.
David highlighted that the new UK government have not reversed these issues. Rather, the Labour government has cut billions of pounds from social welfare and targeted people with disabilities.
He ended by urging that the new government needs to understand this evidence and act. He outlined ways that we can all play a part towards that.
Please see below for further information and share this extensive programme of work:
- Podcast: https://www.transformingsociety.co.uk/2024/12/03/podcast-austerity-the-silent-killer/
- Blog: https://theconversation.com/how-the-uks-austerity-policies-caused-life-expectancy-to-fall-244558
- Two-minute summary video: https://tinyurl.com/socialmurdervideo
- Old(er) animation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nvY8_ga7qE
In addition, you can buy a copy of the book and share – all royalties from the book go to NHS charities: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/social-murder
You can download the speaker’s slides here.
A recording of the webinar is available below.
