Doctors can act as advocates on health effects of poverty, says BMA

Doctors can help to tackle poverty by highlighting its effects on their patients’ health, the BMA has said. In a briefing paper published on 20 June, the BMA’s board of science outlined the causes of poverty, how it can affect patient health, and what doctors and the NHS can do to tackle it.1 Parveen Kumar, chair of the board of science, said that doctors were willing to act as advocates for patients on the negative effects of poverty on health and “want to be empowered to support patients who might be living in poverty.” Recent estimates indicate that a third of people in the UK have, …