In the decade to 2010 life expectancy in England for the worst off increased by three years. In the last 10 years, according to a landmark study released on Tuesday, life expectancy has stalled for everyone in the country, the first levelling-off of health gains for a century. It is a national scandal that has poor women living shorter lives. In England, men in the poorest housing estates die, on average, nine and a half years earlier than those in the grandest homes. The poor in this country will not only die sooner, they will also spend more of their lives with a disability. In developed countries, death rates are supposed to decline. However, since 2011 there has been no sign of a decrease in mortality for people aged under 50. As the report warns: “If health has stopped improving it is a sign that society has stopped improving.”
It is clear that something has gone very wrong. The question is what? Sir Michael Marmot, the author of the report, says that the slowdown in life expectancy improvements cannot be attributed solely to severe winters or flu. What Sir Michael’s work points to is that inequalities are a matter of life and death, of health and sickness, of wellbeing and misery. It is unfair that in England people in different social circumstances experience avoidable differences in health, wellbeing and length of life. Yet the poor odds of life’s lottery are a result of political choices made since 2010.
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