Ian Sample

There is a massive health span inequality in the UK and even within England.

I mean, if you look at Richmond-upon-Thames in West London, a wealthy part of the country...

The average health span for a man there is 69.3 years, and for a woman it's 70.3 years.

But if you go 250 or so miles north, you'll find the average health span for a man in Blackpool is 50.9 years, so much lower.

And the average for a woman in Hartlepool, around the same sort of level up north, is 51.2 years.

So there is an incredible divide here.

Well, we know that we're a pretty sick nation.

We have poor health as a nation when you compare our health to other nations.

And the report highlights obesity as a major factor.

I mean, we're absolutely one of the most obese countries.

And that's causing more diabetes, more heart disease, more stroke, more cancer.

But there's also high numbers of deaths from alcohol, drugs, suicide.

So all of these things are pulled out by the Health Foundation in this report.

And they're saying that obviously...

all of those things need attention.

Interestingly, overall life expectancy has been pretty stable.

And this fall in healthspan isn't driven by COVID.

One thing the Health Foundation did was they ranked us alongside other countries.

And the UK is now ranked 20 out of 21 high-income countries.

And that's down from 14th in 2012.