HEALTH AND SOCIAL WELFARE
The Mayor does not run the National Health Service. The Mayor does hold a statutory duty to address health inequalities in London, sits on London’s health partnership structures, commissions services, and controls the physical environment that determines much of the city’s health outcome before any clinician is involved.
13.1 The environment of health
- Affordable community gyms and sport opened across London to tackle obesity.Delivered with boroughs and partners. Indicative cost: fifty-five million pounds across the term.
- All unsold supermarket food made available to the homeless on the day of expiry, first come, first served.A convening and partnership commitment built on the London Food Strategy. Indicative cost: three million pounds annually.
- Incentives for healthy food: fruit, vegetables, meat and proper sources of protein.Delivered through the London Food Strategy and school food programmes. Indicative cost: eighteen million pounds annually.
- Food support for low-income Londoners, delivered through vouchers and free school meals.Welfare provision is a Department for Work and Pensions function. A mayoral voucher and free school meals scheme achieves the same end within power. Indicative cost: provisionally ninety million pounds annually.
13.2 Health inequality
- The health and wealth disparity between London’s communities addressed as a statutory duty of this office.The Health Inequalities Strategy is a legal obligation of the Mayor, not an aspiration. Indicative cost: twelve million pounds annually.
- Accessible therapy and treatment for alcoholism and addiction, recognised as the diseases they are.The Mayor commissions some services directly and influences health commissioning through London’s partnership boards. Indicative cost: twenty-two million pounds annually.
- Vaping and its sale to children curbed, with advertising removed from the TfL estate immediately.Retail licensing and sales restriction require national legislation and borough licensing. Advertising restriction across the TfL estate is immediate and direct.
- Nursing, medical and NHS pay pressures in London eased through key worker housing delivered directly.Pay is set by national review bodies. Housing is within mayoral power and addresses the same pressure.
13.3 Public health communication
- Full transparency and verified safety data in every public health campaign run by City Hall.Within existing communications budgets.
- Informed consent and bodily autonomy respected absolutely. No service under mayoral control will impose a vaccination condition on any Londoner.Direct and guaranteed across TfL, the GLA, MOPAC and the London Fire Brigade. Informed consent is already the legal standard in UK medical practice and this commitment holds mayoral services to it without exception.