A new study found that healthy life expectancy in the UK has fallen below retirement age, with Britain ranking among the worst performers of 21 high-income nations and stark inequalities persisting between wealthy and deprived communities.
A new study has revealed that healthy life expectancy in the UK has fallen by over two years in a decade, dropping from 62.9 years for men and 63.7 years for women between 2012-2014 to just under 61 for both by 2022-2024. Co-author Andrew Mooney warned that “the UK’s health is deteriorating and slipping further behind comparable nations,” describing the findings as a “watershed moment” as healthy years now fall below the retirement age of 66.
The report also exposed deepening health inequalities between affluent and deprived areas, with the gap in healthy life expectancy between England’s richest and poorest communities standing at 19.4 years for males and 20.3 years for females. While men in wealthy Richmond enjoy healthy lives until 69.3 years, men in deprived Blackpool average just 50.9 years. “Successive governments have failed to take the long-term action needed to address this, resulting in a growing economic and fiscal impact as well as a substantial human cost,” the report concluded.