Financial wellbeing is a fundamental building block of health. Positive financial wellbeing, the state of ‘feeling secure and in control’ of personal finances, offers the scaffolding to meet the demands of daily life, fulfil personal aspirations and deal with unexpected events. The impact of this extends beyond finances to underpin good mental and physical health throughout the life course. In contrast, a lack of financial wellbeing can be catastrophic. Financial insecurity, especially at its most severe, can have deep and long-lasting impacts on psychological, social and physical wellbeing that affects not only individuals and families but entire communities.

In the UK, financial insecurity is alarmingly widespread. At the most severe end, 4.2 million households were going without essentials in 2021/22, and 3.4 million households reported being unable to afford sufficient food. Such shocking figures are set in the context of persistent rates of poverty in the UK where, in 2021/22, more than one in five, or 14.4 million, people were living in poverty. Further, while poverty has impacts across the whole of society, some groups have disproportionately higher, deeper and more persistent rates of poverty, including children, lone-parent families, carers, disabled people and many minoritised ethnic groups.

These levels of financial insecurity are profoundly detrimental to the nation’s health. Despite this, conversations around financial wellbeing are often fraught with stigma and misconceptions. Against this backdrop, Talk Money Week, running from the 4th to the 10th of November, offers the opportunity to begin and build more meaningful conversations on this important issue. For the public health community, it offers an opportunity to continue developing our understanding of the impact of financial insecurity on health. Coinciding with Living Wage Week, it also highlights our responsibility to advocate for effective and equitable responses founded on an understanding of the complex systemic drivers of financial insecurity, but rooted in the assets and needs of each local community.

Reflecting these priorities, the Faculty of Public Health (FPH), as outlined in its Vision for the Public’s Health, is committed to advocating for those living in poverty. This includes holding the Government to account on evidence-informed policy which can prevent poverty and mitigate its effects on health. To this end, we welcome recent Budget announcements such as the increase in National Minimum Wage and boosting the Affordable Homes Programme. However, to truly address this crisis the Government must go further, extending the National Living Wage, ensuring the level of Universal Credit offers a robust safety net, scrapping policies which sustain and reinforce poverty such as the two-child limit and benefit cap, delivering an increase of 90,000 social rent homes per year and committing to a new Child Poverty Act which sets out to eradicate child poverty by 2030. Such calls may be considered ambitious but, given the impact of poverty on the nation’s health and productivity, we see them as necessary and urgent.

Until then, in the wake of last week’s Budget, the work to tackle financial insecurity, its root causes and effects will continue. For the FPH, this will be led by its Poverty Special Interest Group of over 70 public health professionals working to tackle poverty at local, regional and national levels. Alongside advocating at the national level, including holding the child poverty taskforce to account on delivering an ambitious strategy that meets the scale of this challenge, we will continue to support the work happening across the country every day in the communities we work with and for. This involves all of us, whether it is championing local organisations who help people in financial difficulty, hospitals developing inclusive services or businesses instigating real Living Wage initiatives. Through these partnerships, continuing to advocate for the change needed from the ground up, the public health community has a central role to play in achieving a healthier, fairer and more productive nation where everyone has the financial security to thrive.

Dr Elliot Clissold
Specialty Registrar in Public Health and General Practice
Member, FPH Poverty Special Interest Group

Emma Bates
Lead for Nottingham Financial Resilience Partnership
Member, FPH Poverty Special Interest Group

Professor Paul Roderick
Chair, FPH Poverty Special Interest Group