• Average healthy life expectancy in parts of the UK has fallen by over six years in less than a decade – a downward trend that began pre-pandemic
• Preventable conditions among those aged 50-64 cost the UK at least £27 billion a year (not including losses due to poor mental health and COVID-19)

A new briefing from the ILC, the UK’s leading authority on longevity, argues that UK policymakers need to urgently shift from a focus on lifespan to extending ‘health span’, ensuring that longer lives are healthy and productive.

Recent decades have seen life expectancy in the UK increase, but the quality of those extra years is deteriorating as we face an escalation in preventable health conditions. There’s at least an 18-year difference in healthy life expectancy between the least and most deprived areas of the country, and in areas like North-East Lincolnshire healthy life expectancy has dropped by an average of 7 years over the last decade alone. This downward trend pre-dates the pandemic.

Latest labour market statistics show two in five adults are economically inactive – 2.6 million of these due to long-term sickness, and their numbers have risen by over half a million since 2019.

The “Healthier for longer?” briefing, published today by the ILC and supported by Aviva, highlights how poor physical and mental health – and health inequalities – are harming the UK’s economy. It finds that the UK economy loses out on at least £27 billion a year in productivity among people aged 50-64 too sick to work due to largely preventable conditions.

Unhealthy nations are less able to capitalise on the opportunities of ageing. ILC’s previous work shows that spending just 0.1 percentage points more on preventing ill-health can unlock an extra 9% of spending per year by older households and 10 extra hours of volunteering.

The COVID-19 pandemic saw a brief injection of money into prevention – with the proportion of health spending on “preventative care” increasing from 4.4% in 2019 to 14.1% in 2021. However, the long-term trend is towards reductions in preventative spend, with substantial reductions in public health grant allocations to local authorities, leading to cuts to preventative services like smoking cessation.

David Sinclair, Chief Executive at the International Longevity Centre UK said:

“For too long politicians have run scared of getting serious on prevention, for fear of the ‘nanny state’ label. But all the evidence shows us that public health measures, and preventative medicines work. I’m all for the ‘nanny state’ if it means we can live well for longer.

“Any government that is serious about reaping the rewards of an ageing society needs to invest in preventative interventions that work – helping people to take more exercise and eat better, keeping people connected and supported, including at work, and banning the things that make us sick.

“Raising the smoking age is a welcome step but must be accompanied by further measures to help people stop smoking and prevent them from starting in the first place. In general, public policy on prevention needs to be bolder and broader.”

Aviva is supporting the ILC’s research into longevity, Doug Brown, CEO of Aviva UK & Ireland Life said:

“Across the UK, health inequalities remain all too prevalent. We know this is determined by socioeconomic, cultural and environmental factors, which are not within the NHS’s control.

“We support the ILC’s call for policymakers to invest greater amounts in Public Health and ill-health prevention. Insurers, employers, government at national and local level, and the food industry, to name a few, all have a role to play in preventing ill health and improving healthy life expectancy of communities across the country.

“As a leading UK business, we want to play our part to help the UK get ready to meet these challenges by helping our customers lead healthier lives. We provide customers with access to a range of wellbeing services, invest in health innovation through Aviva Ventures, and help employers to promote good health for their employees and return to work following ill-health absence.”

Ends

Media contacts

ILC – Press@ilcuk.org.uk or +44 (0) 7736 124 096. Spokespeople are available on request.

Aviva – fiona.whytock@aviva.com or +44 (0) 7800 692299.

Notes

The ILC, the UK’s leading authority on demographic change, has embarked on a programme of work to develop a new Longevity White Paper, identifying the changes we need to make to grasp the opportunities of population ageing, and longer lives. The development of our Longevity White Paper, which is supported by Aviva, will identify new evidence-based solutions for an ageing society.

This is the fifth in a series of thematic briefing papers setting out the issues of concern, sharing compelling new statistics, and inviting solutions.

You can send any comments or ideas for solutions to info@ilcuk.org.uk

Sources

The ILC’s Healthy Ageing and Prevention Index ranks 121 countries against six indicators including life span and health span. Prevention Index – ILCUK

ILC-Introducing-the-Healthy-Ageing-and-Prevention-Index-1.pdf (ilcuk.org.uk)

Health state life expectancies by national deprivation deciles, England – Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk); NHS England » About the prevention programme

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthinequalities

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/datasets/summaryoflabourmarketstatistics

https://ilcuk.org.uk/a-million-over-50-year-olds-remain-involuntarily-workless/

Major conditions strategy: case for change and our strategic framework – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Prevention is better than cure (publishing.service.gov.uk)

Healthy life expectancy target: the scale of the challenge

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