MPs have criticised the government for introducing policies to tackle health inequalities in the NHS in England without good evidence to support them and with inadequate evaluation.

The health select committee warned in a report published this week, “All too often governments rush in with insufficient thought, do not collect adequate data at the beginning about the health of the population which will be affected by the policies, do not have clear objectives, make numerous changes to the policies and its objectives and do not maintain the policy long enough to know whether it has worked.”

The chairman of the committee, Kevin Barron MP, said, “Far more must be done to ensure money injected into implementing these policies is tracked, and policy design must be sufficiently improved so that effective and accurate evaluation can take …