The persistence of socioeconomic inequalities in health is a major policy concern in England, which was addressed by the new labour government in 1997 which prioritised curtailing health inequalities as a policy goal. This paper addresses two related questions: first, it empirically examines the dynamic patterns of socioeconomic inequalities in health in England from 1997 to 2007 by estimating concentration indices over three measures of health, namely self-reported health, long standing illness and health limitations, calculated across different years of the Health Survey for England. ⋯ Results suggest that patterns of health inequalities in England exhibit no significant variation from 1997 to 2007, although importantly, some reduction on inequalities in health, measured through self-assessed health, is found. Patterns of socioeconomic inequalities in health in spearhead areas are not found to be significantly different than health inequalities in non-spearhead areas.