Health Inequalities Strategy Implementation Plan 2025–2028

Why this matters

• London has one of the highest rates of child poverty in the UK, with 35 per cent living in relative poverty. Reference:2 The cost-of-living crisis has deepened hardships for many families, making day-to-day essentials, let alone enrichment, harder to afford.

• Sports and physical activity – proven to boost health and wellbeing overall – are also out of reach for many. Currently over 600,000 children in London (5–16 years old) are not meeting the recommended levels of daily activity according to Sport England’s Active Lives survey (2023/24). Reference:3

• In 2021–2022 the Survey of Londoners found that 300,000 London children – around 16% – faced food insecurity. Reference:4

The Mayor’s vision

The Mayor is committed to making London the healthiest place in the world to grow up. This ambition recognises that every stage of a young person’s development – from birth through early childhood, school years, adolescence, and their first steps into adulthood – shapes their future health and life chances.

That’s why City Hall has been working with schools, boroughs, communities, the voluntary sector, and many more partners to support young Londoners with the right help, at the right time, throughout their lives.

Key achievements include:

• Universal Free School Meals (UFSM): Since it was introduced in September 2023, the programme has to date delivered 70 million healthy nutritious meals, for every child in state-funded primary schools in London. This provided a much-needed safety-net for up to 270,000 children and their families at the height of the cost of living crisis.

• The Mayor’s Healthy Early Years London and Healthy Schools London programmes: Over 4,500 schools, early years settings and childminders are signed up to the scheme, which has been working to support children’s mental and physical health and wellbeing.

• School Superzones: Nearly 90 Superzones have been established across 28 boroughs, targeting local health issues impacting children outside the school gates, such as fast-food takeaways, traffic pollution, youth vaping, and poor access to green spaces. The programme has benefitted over 46,000 primary and secondary school children.

• London's Violence Reduction Unit (VRU): Launched in 2019 by the Mayor as the first of its kind in England and Wales, the Unit has supported children and young people with more than 400,000 diversionary activities, targeted interventions and positive opportunities. This includes a £12million investment in educational support – including speech, language and communications interventions – to tackle school exclusions and persistent absenteeism.

• £34 million investment in mentoring programmes: Supported over 100,000 disadvantaged young people with tailored support and guidance – offering not just encouragement, but a sense of purpose and connection through critical life stages.

• Free Holiday meals programme: Since April 2023, this provided nearly 24.5 million meals to low-income families during the school holidays and weekends.

Looking ahead: a city that grows with its children

Despite this progress, the Mayor recognises that for every child and young person to have the opportunity to get on and get ahead we need to go further.  He wants to build on what works, while expanding and evolving efforts to meet the growing needs of young Londoners and our changing city.

To ensure that all children in London eat at least one nutritious meal each school day, the Mayor will continue to provide universal free school meals for state-funded primary schools for as long as he is Mayor. This will help every child – regardless of their family income – and give them the fuel to learn and grow.

He will continue his ongoing investment in the Healthy Schools and Healthy Early Years programmes to help every child to have the best start in life, regardless of their background. The support offered by the programmes during these formative years is critical for long-term health and wellbeing. Work also continues to make London a city that encourages children to be active, by making streets safer, building more cycle lanes and creating places for children to grow, live and play.

We know that access to enriching, positive opportunities is vital to the social, emotional, and physical wellbeing of young Londoners – especially those at risk or from disadvantaged backgrounds. That’s why the Mayor has committed to delivering 250,000 positive opportunities to help underserved young Londoners achieve their aspirations.

As part of this, he is working with partners to deliver the Holiday Hope programme, increasing young people’s access to youth spaces and food provision during the more challenging holiday periods.

He is also providing more opportunities for children and young people to participate in their communities, build resilience and support their physical and mental health, through programmes such as Sports Unites and Go! London.

In addition, he is supporting Skills Trailblazers to equip young people with skills and offer mentoring to support them to access education, training, and jobs to help break the cycle of disadvantage. Working hand in hand with local boroughs and partners.

Moreover, he will continue to invest in the Violence Reduction Unit to deliver skilled youth work and mentoring, support schools to be more inclusive, and help young people access safe spaces and activities after school and at weekends.

His work will also address some of the broader conditions that shape children’s health, including: 

• improving housing conditions, through schemes like Warmer Homes London, which help to reduce energy bills and make homes warmer

• making travel more affordable, with fare concessions on public transport that help families stay connected to schools and other services, and enable young people to access opportunities

• continuing to improve London’s air quality and enhance its green and blue spaces to make London a city that more young people can enjoy now, as well as taking action to improve the city’s climate resilience to help make it a place they can enjoy in the future too.

Why this matters

• Mental health issues among young people are becoming more prevalent. NHS data from 2023 shows one in five young people are living with a probable mental health disorder. Reference:5 Despite significant work in the NHS, local government, the VCSE and in communities themselves to address this, the challenge continues to grow.

• The number of people in contact with children and young people’s mental health services is on the rise; monthly London CYP mental health service contacts was 69,000 in Jan 2025 vs 67,000 in Jan 2024. Reference:6

• Life satisfaction for adults in London in 2022/23 was rated as 7.35 out of 10, based on the question: "Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?" Reference:7

The Mayor’s vision

The Mayor is passionate about supporting Londoners with their mental health. Since taking office, he has worked closely with partners including the NHS, London Councils, Association of Directors of Public Health for London, Office of Health Improvement and Disparities and the voluntary and community sector to ensure that all Londoners have an equal opportunity to achieve good mental health and wellbeing and know where to go for support.

The Mayor’s investment of over £4 million in Thrive LDN – a citywide mental health partnership – has delivered grants, training, and other support to create opportunities for Londoners to act on mental health.

Key achievements include:

• Leading London’s #ZeroSuicideLDN campaign: The Mayor’s leadership and support for Zero Suicide Alliance since 2019 has ensured that over 450,000 Londoners have taken suicide awareness training – including the Mayor himself. The strength of response in the capital highlights the importance of city leadership in driving public engagement and reducing stigma.

• Investing in young people’s mental health: Support for Youth Mental Health First Aid enabled training for over 4,000 education and youth workers across London. In addition, further mayoral support for Thrive LDN and Papyrus enabled 350 further and higher education staff from over 80 London colleges and universities to receive suicide prevention training.

• Right to Thrive grant programmes, delivered through Thrive LDN, which enabled grassroots and community-led organisations to support Londoners at disproportionate risk of poor mental health and wellbeing.

• Improving access to tools and resources: There has been a core thread of work to connect Londoners with free wellbeing resources and training – this included the Help Yourself and Others digital platform to boost community resilience, and launching the #ChampionMentalHealth campaign. This work has altogether meant training and resources reaching over 250,000 Londoners; helping them to feel more confident about supporting their own and others’ mental health and wellbeing.

Looking ahead: a city that supports every Londoner’s mental health

The Mayor will continue to build on this work during this term – particularly by ensuring that more Londoners in key frontline and community roles and settings are better equipped to support mental health and wellbeing, both for individuals and the wider community. His vision is that we continue to ensure that London is a city where mental health support is accessible and embedded in everyday life.

The Mayor will continue funding and partnering with Thrive LDN, taking a prevention-focused approach to supporting Londoners’ mental health and wellbeing. Our work together will include: delivering trauma-informed training to community organisations working with migrant communities, strengthening resilience for those communities affected by conflict and crisis, and working with employers to improve economic wellbeing. We will also continue our work to tackle stigma and increase Londoners’ awareness of training and resources which will empower them both to help others and themselves.

Young Londoners’ mental health is a priority for the Mayor, who recognises that the best support starts early and is woven into the environments where young people live, learn and grow. Building on the success of Youth Mental Health First Aid, the Mayor will invest in mental health training for mentors, to ensure trusted adults in the community have the information to guide and empower young people’s wellbeing.

The Mayor is also investing in a pilot mental health programme in secondary schools, aimed at communities in London where mental health and wellbeing challenges are more acute. Rooted in the whole-school approach – an evidence-based model that embeds mental health support throughout school life – the programme will initially:

• support thousands of young people across 16 state-funded secondary schools in eight London boroughs

• strengthen each school's capacity, resilience, and mental health skills

• equip the school community to tailor support to meet the unique needs of their students, now and in the future

• create insights and learning that can be shared with schools across the city.

Alongside these targeted mental health initiatives, the Mayor has also driven broader efforts, recognising that much of his wider agenda – from tackling poverty and housing inequality to supporting adult education and work quality – has a direct impact on mental health and wellbeing. His work includes:

• taking action to improve housing security, recognising that insecure housing and the threat of eviction have significant negative effects on mental health. The Mayor continues to advocate for the Renters’ Rights Bill - which sets out to ban Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions – and provide significant additional support to councils in London to introduce new, and expand existing, selective licensing schemes, one of the best tools boroughs have to improve standards and conditions in their local private rented sectors.

• improving the quality of and access to work for Londoners. The Mayor’s Good Work Standard is supporting businesses and employers to raise the standard for workplace fairness and mental wellbeing support, including working with Thrive LDN to strengthen the mental health support it provides for businesses.

• in partnership with London boroughs through four sub-regional partnerships, delivering five Get Britain Working Trailblazers to help over 5,000 young and unemployed Londoners move into good quality jobs, testing new integrated approaches that bring together employment services with physical and mental health support.

• improving the quality and accessibility of green and blue spaces to support better mental health and increase opportunities for physical activity through active travel commitments and investment to improve access to leisure walking and community sports.

Why this matters

• The average mean age of death for someone sleeping rough in England is just 45 years for men, and 43 for women. Reference:8

• In London in 2022/23 there was a 10.2 percentage point gap in the employment rate between those with a long-term health condition and the overall employment rate. Reference:9

• Poor housing impacts physical and mental health, with unaffordable (and unstable/low quality) housing linked to increased stress, anxiety, and depression. Poor housing in London costs the NHS an estimated £100m a year due to falls, excess cold and/or heat and a range of other hazards. Reference:10

The Mayor’s vision 

The Mayor recognises the deep connection between our health, our environment, our jobs and our homes. To achieve his vision of a fairer London, he believes these challenges must be tackled together, not in isolation. As London feels the growing effects of climate change, this integrated approach becomes even more urgent. From heatwaves to surface water flooding, climate impacts hit the most disadvantaged communities hardest – widening the very inequalities we aim to close. The Mayor is committed to ensuring that action on housing, economic opportunity and the environment also delivers better health for all Londoners.

Key achievements include:

• Affordable Homes Programme and London Plan: As part of our previous Affordable Homes Programme, we hit our target of starting 116,000 new affordable homes in London, and have taken council homebuilding to the highest level since the 1970s. Through his affordable homes programmes and the next London Plan, the Mayor will continue to deliver the homes Londoners need, and through his Good Growth objectives will ensure a healthy and resilient city.

• Tackling air pollution: The Mayor has taken world-leading action to clean up London’s toxic air through bold policies, including through the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ). His work to ensure Londoners are breathing cleaner air is expected to save the NHS and social care system almost £5bn and prevent more than one million air pollution related hospital admissions by 2050. Reference:11 And importantly for health inequalities, Londoners living in more deprived communities, living near London’s busiest roads, are seeing greater benefits. Reference:12

• Creating a greener, healthier, more resilient city: Through programmes such as the Green and Resilient spaces fund, the Grow Back Greener fund and the Climate Resilient Schools programme the Mayor has helped to ensure the city is both greener and more prepared for the impacts of climate change. These are not just environmental wins - they’re lifelines for communities that need healthier, more nature rich places to live and grow. In addition, the Mayor’s work towards Net Zero ensures that London plays its part in tackling the climate emergency.

• Improving opportunities for working Londoners: Improving access to fair, secure and dignified work by championing the London Living Wage is helping to ensure Londoners can afford the essentials. In fact, the Mayor’s support has increased the pay of 50,000 Londoners by £635million, helping to address in-work poverty. The Good Work Standard, adopted by more than 170 employers, is also raising the bar for workplace fairness and flexibility – ensuring that good employment isn’t the privilege of a few, but the right of all Londoners.

Looking ahead: a city built on good work, affordable homes and a healthy environment

The Mayor is working with partners to build a city which supports people’s health – through planning, housing, employment and more. His vision is a future where everyone has a home they can afford, meaningful work, and in a city that supports their health and wellbeing. He continues to build on the progress already made in London, and seeks to ensure that action reaches every neighbourhood, with no one pushed to the margins.

Access to fair, secure and dignified work is essential to good health. Looking forward, the mayor is committed to working with partners across the city and national government to improve growth – the London growth strategy outlines a shared commitment to help to create 150,000 good jobs by 2028. The collaborative work on Get Britain Working Trailblazer and the Mayor and London Council’s new Inclusive Talent Strategy will be key to achieving this - supporting more people into work and ensuring all Londoners can get the skills or training needed to progress their careers. New Key Worker Living Rent Homes will also help London to attract and retain its essential workforce.

Housing continues to be a significant contributor to health inequalities in London. A good quality, affordable and secure home is key to good health. The Mayor is addressing this in several ways including through his Affordable Homes Programmes, which support the delivery of good quality social rented homes, as well as homes for intermediate tenures including the Key Worker Living Rent, London Living Rent and shared ownership. The Mayor has also made a commitment to support the delivery of 40,000 new council homes by 2030.

The Mayor is working with housing associations and boroughs to improve the quality of rented homes. His Warmer Homes programme has helped improve the homes of over 5,100 fuel-poor and low-income Londoners, and from this year the Warmer Homes London partnership with London Councils will oversee a further investment of over £230 million, benefiting around 22,000 homes.

Few challenges illustrate inequality more starkly than rough sleeping, and London faces some of the highest levels in the country. This is driven by a lack of social housing and rising private rents, gaps in immigration support which have left many migrants without access to certain public services, and cuts to local authority and welfare budgets which have impacted the specialist support needed to maintain secure housing. Like other large cities, London also sees people moving to the capital when they have nowhere else to go – often from places where they cannot get support. The result is that almost one in every three people sleeping rough in England, are sleeping rough in London.

That’s why addressing the injustice of rough sleeping continues to be a priority for the Mayor and partners across the city.

The Mayor has committed to work with partners to end rough sleeping in London by 2030. His recently published Rough Sleeping Plan of Action, backed by £10 million from City Hall and £17 million from government, sets out a clear path.

This Plan builds on the success of initiatives such as the Rough Sleeping Plan of Action 2018, and other interventions which helped 18,000 people off the streets since 2016, with 75% of those helped to stay off the streets for good. The new plan includes:

• ongoing leadership to ensure that people can get the help they need as early and as simply as possible

• a new network of Ending Homelessness Hubs, to prevent rough sleeping wherever possible

• 'Homes off the Streets', a programme to deliver rapid, sustainable routes away from the streets, and provide long-term housing and support.

This work will help ensure that no one is forgotten or overlooked in London.

Delivering on London’s bold ambitions – and achieving lasting, equitable change – will only be possible through strong and sustained partnership. That means working closely with boroughs, the NHS, civil society, and national government to ensure every community is supported and no one is excluded from progress. 

Why this matters

• 43% of Black and 33% of Asian Londoners reported being treated unfairly due to their ethnicity compared to 19% for the London population in general. Reference:13

• Stark examples of ethnic inequality mean that Black women are almost three times more likely to die from pregnancy and childbearing-related complications than White women. Reference:14

• In London, in 2020/21–2022/23*, there was a nine times difference between the weekly income (after housing costs) between the top 10% of earners and the bottom 10% of earners. This is greater than for the rest of UK, where there was a 4.8 times difference. Reference:15

The Mayor’s vision: Building healthier communities

The Mayor is working with partners to create a more inclusive, safe, and welcoming city where all Londoners can participate and thrive. Key to this is a commitment to act on injustice that drives harm in the city; he is taking action to address structural inequalities which harm Londoners' health, and reduce opportunities for them to thrive.

Addressing structural inequalities is vital to improving all Londoners' health. These are inequalities which are embedded in social structures, policies, and institutions that create and perpetuate disadvantage for certain groups. These can be based on characteristics such as gender, class, disability, and ethnicity, or combinations of factors (known as intersectionality).

Under the Mayor’s leadership, City Hall has worked closely with the voluntary and community sector, health and care organisations, boroughs and a wide range of partners to support and include all communities, and make sure everybody’s health is valued equally.

Key achievements include:

• Dementia Friendly London: delivered in partnership with the Alzheimer’s Society and other partners. It includes the Dementia Friendly Venues Charter and supporting a best practice network; work to improve access to the city and its cultural venues for Londoners with dementia and their carers continues. To date, 272 venues have been accredited, training over 1,600 staff and with a footfall of 2.3 million visitors.

• Fast Track Cities programme: London has become the first global city to exceed the 2025 UN targets of 95% diagnosed, 95% treated and 95% virally suppressed. In London, at February 2025, our figures were 97% diagnosed, 98% treated, 98% virally suppressed, making London a world leader in addressing HIV.

• Food Roots 2 programme: this helped to build sustainable and resilient food partnerships to support Londoners at risk of food insecurity. The programme expanded to involve training for professionals to support better signposting to the Healthy Start programme – which provides financial assistance for healthy food and milk to pregnant people and families with children under four who meet certain income-related criteria.   

• Investing in advice provision and wider support to help Londoners address financial hardship. This has included: Mayoral funding of social welfare advice services, which to date have supported just under 90,000 Londoners and generated just under £40 million in additional income; the Mayor’s Pension Credit take-up campaign raised over £17 million in financial gains; and the Mayor’s Cost of Living Hub, which signposts to a range of information and advice to help low-income Londoners mitigate rising living costs.

• Supporting London’s voluntary and community sector: Including programmes like the Civil Society Roots programme, which offered funding and support to strengthen equity led and civil society organisations. In the third and final funding round, this provided £1.2 million, with contributions from the Mayor, City Bridge Trust, and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

• Equity focused partnership initiatives like Building a Fairer City, which have elevated community voices and driven action on living standards, labour market equality, equity in public services, and civil society strength. Linked to this is the Mayor’s work to support racially minoritized Londoners into work through the Workforce Integration Network which improved pathways into good work for Black, Asian, and racially minoritised Londoners –working with 56 large employers across the Mayor’s key priority sectors to design and test initiatives.

• Publishing guidance for designing safer public spaces for women, girls and gender diverse people in London through his research and advocacy programme Good Growth by Design.

Looking ahead: A city that supports all its residents

London’s diverse communities are among its greatest assets. The voluntary and community sectors have played an essential role in many of the Mayor’s and partners’ programmes. The Mayor will continue to champion the sector and strengthen this relationship during this term. This will include work to improve our engagement with the sector, through forums, outreach and networks – including continuing the forums established to strengthen the voice of groups who are often less heard, such as Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations forum and race equality roundtables as well as new for a for engagement with groups representing LGBTQIA+ Londoners, older Londoners and groups representing women and girls.

Central to this is the Loved & Wanted Campaign which promotes London’s values of equality, inclusion and unity by sending a clear message of support to Londoners, no matter who they are or where they are from, that they respected, valued, loved and wanted in the city. The Mayor has also invested in wider community building activity; support councils and community organisations through the Mayor’s Community Weekend 2025.

The impacts of violence against women and girls (VAWG) on health has been underestimated for many years. Violence is not inevitable, and all women and girls should feel safer and be safe from violence. The Mayor’s new VAWG strategy, due to be published in 2025, is being developed with partners including the health and care system. It will build on the success of the landmark summit, held in September 2023, where London’s health partners signed up to a number of pledges to tackle misogyny, sexual harassment and violence against women and girls through their services and in health environments, to help prevent VAWG across the capital. The Strategy will mobilise protection and support for victims and survivors through better co-ordination, and drive work to hold perpetrators to account.       

Low income and poverty drive poor physical and mental health. This was brought into stark relief during the COVID-19 pandemic.  As part of his response, the Mayor taken action to support low-income families through the introduction of Universal Free School Meals; protecting free and discounted travel fares for children; and convening boroughs and VCS partners on a programme of income maximisation that has already delivered more than £55m in income gains for Londoners. Building on this work for this term, the Mayor will work in partnership with national and local government to tackle poverty and invest in direct income maximisation and child poverty interventions.

Structural racism is a driver of health inequalities; a factor long overlooked.  It influences access to the building blocks that support good health – including decent housing, work, education and healthcare. Racism leads to worse health outcomes for many ethnic minority communities, who face higher rates of long-term conditions and poorer access to care. The evidence for action is clear. Reference:16

The Mayor is continuing to invest in the work of the London Anti-Racism Collaboration for Health (LARCH), uniting the Mayor, the NHS, boroughs, the voluntary and community sector, public health and others to drive the change needed to improve equity in London’s health and care system. Work includes rolling out the Race Equity Maturity Index (REMI) across London health and care organisations, and targeted work to address mental health and maternal health inequalities.

Why this matters

• Cardiovascular disease is one of the main causes of early death or disability in England. The greatest impact is felt by the most deprived communities.

• Over 2.3 million adults in London (33%) aren't active enough to stay healthy. Reference:17 Walking or cycling for 20 minutes a day will help Londoners to meet the Chief Medical Officer's physical activity guidelines which can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by up to 35%. Reference:18

• For every minute that a person in cardiac arrest doesn’t receive CPR and defibrillation, their chance of survival drops by up to 10%. Reference:19

The Mayor’s vision

Small, everyday choices can add up to a big impact. That's why the Mayor has been working with partners to shape a city that actively enables and promotes healthier behaviours. This means designing streets that are greener, safer and more inviting for people to walk, wheel, cycle and use public transport. It means enabling physical activity to be part of everyday life. And, when emergencies happen, it means ensuring Londoners have access to life-saving equipment close by. 

Working in partnership with boroughs, health bodies, civil society and communities, the Mayor is driving change to make healthy choices the norm. 

Key achievements include:

• Expanding London’s cycling network: The Mayor’s cycling network has grown from 90km in 2016 to over 400km in 2024. Over a quarter of Londoners now live within 400 meters of a high-quality cycle route and the Mayor aims for this to reach 40 per cent by 2030. Data in TfL’s Travel in London 2024 report shows that 37 per cent of adult Londoners currently do at least 20 minutes of active travel per day.

• Introducing the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) in 2019, and its expansion London-wide in 2023: Making London healthier also means making it more walkable, greener, and safer – ULEZ supports these aims, marking a major step in tackling toxic emissions linked to higher risks of asthma, and heart and lung disease. The levels of dangerous pollutants that contribute to heart attacks and strokes in London have dropped, and particularly in more deprived areas. Reference:20

• Safer speeds: Tackling road danger is key to increasing physical activity through mode shift to active travel or using public transport. The Mayor’s Vision Zero Action Plan aims to see no one killed or seriously injured on London’s roads by 2041. Lower speeds are essential  to achieving this and TfL has already introduced more than 264km of 20mph speed limits and is working with boroughs to expand 20mph across London through the Lowering Speed Programme. This is a matter of equity as those living in or travelling through the most deprived areas of London are twice as likely to be killed or seriously injured in a collision. Reference:21 TfL research shows that 20mph schemes have reduced the number of people killed and seriously injured on borough roads in London. Reference:24

• A ground-breaking policy restricting junk-food advertising on the TfL estate: To help combat childhood obesity and encourage healthier diets, the Mayor introduced a policy to restrict junk food ads across the TfL estate in 2019. Independent research found that, within three years of the policy being introduced, London households reduced their purchases of unhealthy food by 1,000 calories per week. Reference:22 This is estimated to have resulted in 94,867 fewer cases of obesity, 2,857 cases of diabetes prevented or delayed, and 1,915 fewer cases of cardiovascular disease. This was complemented by the London Plan policy to restrict the development of new hot food takeaways near schools – creating healthier food environments where children live, grow and learn.

• Investing in grassroots sport and community wellbeing: Sport isn’t just about physical fitness – it builds mental wellbeing and social connections. That’s why the Mayor has championed community sports, investing in provision and breaking down the barriers to participation. Building on the success of his Sport Unites programme, the Mayor launched Go! London, a £22.1million fund working in partnership with the London Marathon Foundation, Sport England, London Marathon Events and London Sport. Over the past two years the fund has supported 180 grassroots sport and community organisations.

• Making emergency equipment more accessible: The Mayor’s commitment to prevention includes improving access to emergency support. In 2023, working with TfL and the London Ambulance Service, he oversaw the installation of defibrillators at every London Underground station. These are available to the public, ensuring rapid response for someone experiencing cardiac arrest. Publicly accessible defibrillators have also been installed on the Overground system and in major bus stations, TfL-owned piers, and Dial-a-Ride vehicles. This work is complemented by an informative video produced to help Londoners gain the confidence and skills to use defibrillators and perform chest compressions in an emergency.

Looking ahead: A city that empowers us to take control of our health

To tackle health inequalities, London must be a city that creates opportunities for people to live healthier lives. The Mayor is continuing to do what he can to empower Londoners to take control, to take steps to understand and improve their health, and to improve access to essential support in a crisis.

Everyone can benefit from being more active every day. Building on the strong foundations laid to date, the Mayor will continue to prioritise prevention, by acting to create a city that enables and supports Londoners to engage in physical activity.

This includes enabling and supporting more, and more diverse Londoners to take up active travel – whether walking, wheeling, or cycling all the way, or as part of a public transport trip. TfL is investing more than £87m across London boroughs and the City of London over the next year to make our streets safer, heathier and greener. The investment will work to create new cycle routes to strengthen London's growing network of Cycleways, more pedestrian crossings in local neighbourhoods and funding to support School Streets schemes, enabling children and young people to walk and cycle to school safely.

The Mayor is also continuing his investment in community sports, through the multi-million pound investment in Go! London and through improving quality and accessibility of green and blue spaces for people to enjoy.

Physical activity is an important factor to both prevent and manage cardiovascular disease. Heart health is an area where we can really make a difference in London. Cardiovascular disease is one of the main causes of early death or disability in England, it’s also a large factor which contributes to people being out of work, and one that is amenable to change through targeted prevention efforts around physical activity, smoking, diet and raising public awareness.

The Mayor will also work with partners to raise awareness of heart-healthy behaviours and the importance of early detection of risk factors—particularly among Londoners who are at greatest risk. This includes support for the London-wide Million Hearts and Minds programme.

The Mayor will also continue to support rapid action in a crisis preventing out of hospital deaths from a cardiac arrest.  Fewer than one in 10 people currently survive a cardiac arrest and for every minute that goes by without life-saving intervention like CPR and defibrillation, the chances of a person surviving cardiac arrest decrease by 10%. That’s why the Mayor plans to build on previous achievements, by expanding access to life-saving public access defibrillators in areas of greatest need, complimenting the important work happening with partners in this area.  He will also continue to raise public awareness about the importance of learning to use defibrillators and performing chest compressions with Londoners in order to boost their confidence about being part of the chain of survival for a person in cardiac arrest.