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National modeling has been undertaken to identify interventions to narrow the life expectancy gap. These include smoking cessation, secondary prevention of cardio vascular disease, early identification of cancer, and action to reduce deaths from respiratory diseases.

Descriptions of the implementation of interventions for these issues are contained in the following separate sections.

The Department of Health has a program of action to tackle and reduce health inequalities in Britain which includes

Our NHS, Our Future includes the vision to create a fair NHS where focus is on improving access to health and social care services for people in disadvantaged and hard-to-reach groups and those living in deprived areas.

Nationally:

To address health inequalities, the Government has focused on three broad areas for action, namely:

National targets have been set by Government to reduce inequalities in life expectancy, circulatory diseases and cancers. They are:

* Two different measures of inequality are specified in the national targets. For life expectancy, the relative gap is used, and for circulatory diseases and cancers, the absolute gap is used.

Nationally, life expectancy is increasing for both men and women, including in Newcastle but it is increasing more slowly than nationally so the gap continues to widen.  The gap is widening more for women than men.  In 2004-2006, for males the gap (between England and the Spearhead group) was 2% wider than at baseline, while for females it was 11% wider.