Health inequity is on the rise across the UK. Not only are we seeing an increasing gap in life expectancies, we’re also seeing falling living standards, and an underfunded and struggling NHS. Poor health continues to be associated with race, class, gender, sexuality and immigration status as choices made by successive governments both remove support from, and aim to directly harm, marginalised communities.
This is not the result of isolated flaws in policy making. Our collective health is shaped by the political decisions made by governments and corporations that hold disproportionate power. These decisions are driven by the logics of capitalism and imperialism, valuing private profit over collective wellbeing. From the geopolitical crises driving fuel poverty to the precarity and destitution manufactured by hostile immigration policies. From the policing of minoritised patients in the NHS, to landlords incentivised to keep people trapped in unaffordable, unlivable homes. From continued inaction on climate change, to the increased allocation of public funds to war and military spending. Health inequity is built into the political and economic systems that shape our lives.
Our mission is to achieve a world in which everyone is able to live healthy, dignified lives, supported by political and economic systems that centre health justice.
To win this world we must change who holds the power to shape these systems. The health community has a vital role to play in this, working alongside and in solidarity with the communities facing and fighting health inequity.
Our guiding values
HEALTH JUSTICE
We are building a world that enables everyone to live healthy, dignified lives, securing equity, reparations, and systems-change to guarantee the right to health.
SOLIDARITY
We are, and we stand with, people facing the violence of health inequity. We act together and we’re accountable to each other.
PEOPLE POWER
We believe change is won and maintained through mass participation and collective action.
LIBERATION
We stand against violence and oppression in all forms.
COLLECTIVE CARE
We are welcoming, we look after each other, and we build sustainable movements.
Our role
Medact exists to organise the health community to change the systems that drive health inequity in the UK. Medact is not a charity that takes actions on behalf of others. Instead, we take an organising approach to our work, supporting the health community to build meaningful relationships of solidarity and take the lead from communities facing health inequity.
The health community has a central role to play in challenging the violence of health inequity. As health workers we often bear witness to, or are directly implicated in, this violence. We treat the symptoms of violent systems. We work within institutions that perpetrate violent practices. We are ourselves exposed to the violence of these systems. We believe this positionality gives the health community unique responsibility and power to challenge these systems.
We are a membership organisation because we know we are stronger when we build a community of people working together to achieve the same goals. Much of our impact comes from our members and supporters working in their communities. Medact supports, amplifies and connects this work, uniting the health community to target key issues that underpin systems at the root of health inequity.
When we say health community we mean everyone involved in making the world a healthier place. We are a movement of nurses, public health workers, researchers, healthcare assistants, doctors, and people that directly experience the violence of health inequality.
How we win
We have developed a framework to make strategic decisions about where to focus Medact’s time and resources, targeting Priority Areas in which health workers and impacted communities can most effectively organise together for health justice.
Our Priority Areas
Using our Priority Area Framework, we have identified three core Priority Areas where we will focus our work and resources over the next five years. We have set out in detail each Priority Area, the health community’s role, and the impact we aim to have.
We have chosen these Priority Areas through consultation and our ongoing working relationship with folks across Medact’s movement, in most cases it was members who first identified the need for organising in these areas. We think they are critically important issues in which Medact members can have a big impact organising for health justice. They are also areas of work that best fit our Priority Area Framework, and therefore we think are most able to win change and shift power to people impacted by health inequity.
Medact is home to thousands of people in the health community, many of whom are working on health justice issues that aren’t covered in our Priority Areas. Medact’s local groups – the heart and soul of much of our work – are independent groups who develop work that is most relevant and useful where they are. These Priority Areas do not preclude other work happening across Medact’s movement, and we will continue to support the work of all our members, whilst also recognising that where necessary we will prioritise the three areas we’ve identified.
Climate Justice throughout our Priority Areas
Climate change is one of the greatest threats humanity has ever faced. Already it is causing untold harm to communities across the world through the extraction of fossil fuels, high polluting industries, ecological collapse, and the corporate and state violence used to suppress community resistance. Climate Justice is and has always been a core part of Medact’s work. This strategy sets out how we will organise the health community in the UK to challenge our reliance on fossil fuels and the health impacts of fuel poverty. Whilst this is our primary climate campaign, Climate Justice runs through all our work, and below we set out how each Priority Area connects to the wider Climate Movement.
Scoping our next Priority Areas
Changing systems takes time, and while we are committed to these Priority Areas over the long term we also expect to begin work on at least one new Priority Area over the course of this strategy. There are many long-standing health justice issues that we do not work on, and new threats emerging from increasing global conflict, technological threats and rising far-right violence. We will be led by impacted communities and our membership in identifying a new Priority Area using the framework we have outlined in this strategy, secure resources to carry out the work, and facilitate collective planning and strategy development.
How we grow
Alongside the Priority Areas above, we will focus our work over the next five years on scaling up the health justice movement, developing organising skills, and creating a compelling vision of a world that centres health justice. We believe these are the building blocks necessary to achieve our mission and key to success in our Priority Areas.
