TONY Blair returns from paternity leave and brings to the NHS Summit evidence of the birth of a happy healthy child.

Important advantages in Leo's health are his parents' jobs, housing, education, support networks. To improve the health of all the population -- and to fulfil the commitment to children over the next 20 years -- we need to enable everyone to share these same features.

Not that everyone needs to be Prime Minister. Nor that the NHS needs more money. But, as the World Health Organisation shows this week, a healthier society does need the wealth in society to be shared more fairly.

JOHN NICHOLSON, Chief Executive, UK Public Health Association, Manchester.