A new health duty for mayors and strategic authorities

This essay was written by the Centre for Local Economic Strategies and The King’s Fund, as part of a programme of work commissioned by The Health Foundation.

The Government’s White Paper on devolution in England, released in December 2024, contained within it the commitment to furnish Strategic Authorities (SAs) with  “…a bespoke duty in relation to health improvement and health inequalities.”

But how will this work in practice? To answer this question, this essay discusses how a duty could help improve health inequalities, we reviews experiences to date with similar and related duties snd sets out the key design features that the duty needs to cover in order to be effective in tackling health inequalities.