Labour deserves credit in its fight against health inequalities

What informed person would expect the gap in life expectancy to start narrowing so soon (What's the prognosis? Society, September 7)? And let's give the government some credit for preventing even greater income and wealth inequalities in the context of globalisation.

To equate August's publication of the recent Department of Health report on health inequalities with the suppression of the Black report is silly. Statistics on life expectancy have been easily available for a while and have been showing the lack of progress in the short term.

The report indicates some important positive trends, in circulatory diseases and child poverty, for instance, but it is a huge challenge to move further forward, as is pointed out in the report.

We can all take political positions on inequality. But let's give some credit to a government that is publishing a wealth of data on these issues, and setting targets to narrow health inequalities.
Tim Blackman
Professor of sociology and social policy, University of Durham

Your story ('Cover up' over rich and poor health gap, September 9) repeats claims that the government suppressed its health inequalities report. This is nonsense. The report, Tackling Health Inequalities, was actively promoted and announced via a press release issued to 1,300 journalists and media outlets. It received widespread coverage. Professor Michael Marmot, the report's author, was extensively interviewed. We can, therefore, hardly be accused of a cover-up.

We are determined to reduce health inequalities. The report showed that we are moving in the right direction and highlighted the further work that needs to be done. However, the report's data dates back to 2003. Last November, we published the Choosing Health white paper aimed at improving health and tackling health inequalities.

Health trainers are one of many initiatives in Choosing Health which will help narrow the inequalities gap by helping people to make healthier choices in their daily lives. Infant mortality rates, a key indicator of health inequalities, have fallen. Government action, including Sure Start, better neo-natal services and stop smoking services, are all having an impact.

Progress is slower in more disadvantaged areas, which is why primary care trusts are piloting many of the key Choosing Health recommendations. Health inequalities are and will continue to be a government priority.
Caroline Flint MP
Minister for public health

John Carvel's article on the Rowntree Foundation's discovery that an "inverse care law" still operates 60 years after foundation of the welfare state does not surprise me (Report, September 2).

When I coined that term in The Lancet in 1971, it had two clauses: that those most in need of good public services were least likely to get them; and that this was a consequence of market forces. The first clause has been endlessly repeated; the second almost always ignored.
Dr Julian Tudor Hart
Swansea