Law for Health Launch Event

The role of law and legal services in addressing social determinants of health and health inequalities are not well understood. The Law for Health stream of work will cover the role and influence of law, legal services, and the justice system on the health of the public and its potential for achieving greater health equity. This launch event will focus specifically on the value of Health Justice Partnerships (HJP) which integrate health and free social welfare legal services to address patients’ health-harming legal needs and reduce pressure on health services. Join us virtually at 1pm on Tuesday 6 July, 2021.

Health Justice Partnership

Legal issues are involved in most critical social determinants of health, such as income, housing, employment, and education. Despite the importance of legal issues in the social determinants of health, law has only recently been seen as a viable intervention in social determinants discourse, research and interventions.

Health Justice Partnerships provide free legal services, with lawyers working directly with healthcare teams, often on site, to address the root causes of ill health. Free legal services have an important role to play in mitigating many of the socio-economic determinants that disproportionately impact the health of low income and vulnerable groups.

Event information

The National Strategy for Health Justice Partnership at UCL Health of the Public is organising a webinar on Law for Health: Using free legal services to tackle the social determinants of health. Join us virtually at 1pm on Tuesday 6 July. 2021.

The aim of the webinar is to influence strategies addressing the social determinants of health and health inequalities and to encourage access to justice and free legal services to be included in national, regional and local approaches to reduce health inequalities.

We will also launch the Law for Health report, written by Professor Genn and Sarah Beardon.

We have an excellent line-up of speakers including:

• Professor Dame Hazel Genn, Director, National Strategy for Health Justice Partnership, University College London

• Jo Bibby, Director of Health, The Health Foundation

• Fiona Rutherford, Director, Access to Justice Policy, Policy and Strategy Group, Ministry of Justice

• Dave Sweeney, Executive Director of Partnerships, Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership