A LACK of investment in vital research and innovation in northern England is stifling economic growth and helping to widen the North-South health divide, senior university and NHS leaders warn the Prime Minister today.

A letter to Boris Johnson signed by 22 of the region’s hospital chief executives and university medical school heads says just £21 is spent per person on health innovation and research in the North compared to a £62 average in the so-called ‘golden triangle’ of London, Oxford and Cambridge.

Yorkshire received just 4.6 per cent of combined research funding in the UK in 2018 - compared to 31.8 per cent in London.

In a challenge to the PM’s levelling-up agenda, the hospital and medical school chiefs argue that this lack of investment helps drive health inequalities which are holding back the northern economy and cost the UK billions of pounds each year in lost productivity.

The letter says the North has more universities in the world top 250 than Italy, Spain and France combined as well as “exceptional hospitals and proven strengths in health innovation”.

And it adds: “There is huge potential to support economic growth through working with innovators to address the needs of patients, support the creation of jobs and drive inward investment.

“Our organisations are the anchor institutions in our cities and regional economise and, with health innovation investment, we can help in levelling up the North.”

It comes in a week that a landmark report by Professor Sir Michael Marmot warned that health inequalities were widening between the most and least deprived parts of the country, while a rise in life expectancy had “slowed dramatically” since 2010.

Poor health accounts for one third of the productivity gap between the North and the rest of the UK, at a cost of £13.2 billion a year, according to the Northern Health Science Alliance which brings together research intensive universities and NHS teaching trusts.

Funding more cutting-edge research in the North would benefit the region by bringing the latest health technology to benefit local patients first. And creating new jobs on the back of research work would boost the northern economy, ultimately leading to a healthier population.

Professor Paul Stewart, the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Medicine & Health at the University of Leeds, said experts in the city were already at the forefront of efforts to develop new health technology to benefit patients.

But he said: “What saddens me even in Leeds is that I can go from watching a Test Match in Headingley two miles north of this university to Hunslet two miles south and there’s a 10-year difference in life expectancy.

“So as we start to unpick those, my view is that we’re probably going to need innovative technologies in order to try and overcome this.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokeswoman said: “We want to level up people’s opportunity to have a long and healthy life, whoever they are, wherever they live and whatever their background or social circumstances. That’s why our NHS Long Term Plan, backed by an extra £33.9 billion puts tackling inequalities at its heart.

"Our approach means integrating good health into housing, transport, education, welfare and the economy because we all know preventing ill health – mental and physical – is about more than just healthcare.”