National oversight

The assessments of the policy area on this page were based on a snapshot of progress on 20 July 2026 and do not reflect more recent announcements.

Lead departments 

• Cabinet Office 
• No. 10  
• Department of Health and Social Care 

Why it matters to health 

Improving health requires a cross-government approach that addresses the causes of ill health, in order to define success, set out a strategy, make sure that accountability mechanisms are in place and resolve policy trade-offs across all of the departments and agencies that have a role in shaping health.  

Labour’s commitments 

Labour’s ‘mission-based’ approach to health promised: 

• ‘a [cross-departmental] mission delivery board… akin to the Climate Change Committee’ 
• potential obligations to report to parliament on progress measures and data  
• a key target to improve healthy life expectancy and halve the gap between the most and least healthy regions of England.  

Status of this policy area 

Successive governments have accepted the principle that there should be a greater focus on prevention for health, and that to achieve this requires a long-term, cross-government approach. However, there has been a lack of progress, with our health stagnating or declining against key indicators. For example, healthy life expectancy declined over the decade 2012–14 to 2022–24. The Labour government pledged to change this through its health mission, part of a new ‘mission-based’ approach to government. 

• Mission boards: Mission boards were initially set up for each of Labour’s five ‘missions’. The health mission board initially functioned as a cabinet committee, chaired by the secretary of state for health, but it is now less formal and has a narrower remit.  
• Mission Delivery Unit: The Mission Delivery Unit was set up in the Cabinet Office in September 2024 to coordinate action on the five missions, but it was disbanded in late 2025. 
• Leadership: While difficult to quantify, there is little evidence that a cross-government mission approach to health has been a driving focus across government or a priority for the prime minister.  
• Strategy: While the 10-Year Health Plan references wider determinants of health and risk factors, it is primarily a plan for the NHS. This reflects a switch to focus on the NHS and move away from the wider ambition to improve health when the government’s Plan for Change was published in December 2024.  
• Metrics and targets: In theory, the commitment to improve healthy life expectancy and halve health inequalities still stands. However, in practice, with no target date or agreed definition of what it would mean to halve the healthy life expectancy gap between regions, it has effectively been downgraded.