Britain’s ‘medieval’ health inequality is devastating NHS, experts say

Britain’s “medieval” levels of health inequality are having a “devastating” effect on the NHS, experts have warned, with the health service estimated to be spending as much as £50bn a year on the effects of deprivation.

Rising rates of child poverty have led to a growing burden on hospitals, with the knock-on cost to the NHS comparable to the annual defence budget.

One senior NHS figure said they were seeing “medieval” levels of untreated illness in some of Britain’s poorest communities, including people attending A&E “with cancerous lumps bursting through their skin”.

Another said hospitals were witnessing a “chilling” trend of vulnerable people, young and old, deliberately self-harming to secure an overnight stay. Concern has also been raised about rising rates of “Dickensian” illnesses, including scabies, rickets and scarlet fever.

The disclosures are revealed as part of a months-long Guardian investigation into the effects of deepening poverty on a “broken” NHS.

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Source: The Guardian, 29 June 2025