Our Vision

The pandemic has highlighted the systemic issues that drive poor health and widen health inequalities. The evidence is fast accumulating on the link between health and wealth, and how actions to facilitate economic growth cannot ignore the health of the population. The CBI states that health-related economic inactivity is costing the UK £180bn a year.   Andy Haldane has recently identified that public health has just tipped into being a headwind holding back economic growth.

 It is now obvious that health is a business issue. Increasing the health resilience of our society cannot be left to government alone; business can make great contributions and grow their business in doing so.

A Business Coalition for a Healthier Nation was one of the key recommendations of The Health of the Nation Strategy published in February 2020 by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Longevity.  It was a focus of the most recent report by the APPG for Longevity, Levelling Up Health launched on 9 April 2021 with Rt Hon Matt Hancock MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Professor Chris Whitty, CMO, and Henry Dimbleby, National Food Strategy.

Business for Health is set up as a community interest company to support the Manifesto Commitment for HLE+5 and maximise business contribution as employers, investors, innovators, providers of healthy products and services.

The first activity of the group is to develop a Business Framework for Health across three pillars: 1) Workforce Health 2) Consumer Heath and 3) Community Health to incentivise and measure positive business contributions to health and bring ‘Health’ into ESG mandates to catalyse investment to enhance the health and economic resilience of the UK.

 The Framework we are proposing is based on what is commonplace now in climate. We aspire to do the same in health, but we need metrics for broader health impacts. Given the diverse nature of business’, cross-sector comparisons are difficult, so our aim is to create tools for companies to enable them to monitor progress against themselves, over time, making changes which enable them to stay ahead of public policy changes.

This initiative is for business, not against business. It’s in business’ self-interest that they have healthier, more productive employees; that they are attuned to consumers’ needs in health; are prepared for health-related changes to regulation or taxation which may have financial impacts; and are aware of the reputational benefits of making a better contribution to the nation’s health.