People in UK spend fewer years in good health than a decade ago, study finds

People in the UK are spending fewer years in good health than a decade ago, prompting concern that the population’s health is “going backwards”. The sharp decline in Britain’s healthy life expectancy, the amount of time someone spends free of illness or disability, is in sharp contrast to its recent rise in most other rich countries globally. The UK population’s health is poor, getting worse and not undergoing the same steady improvement seen in countries such as Japan, Norway and Spain, according to a new analysis of healthy life expectancy in 21 countries by the Health Foundation thinktank. It went up by an average of four-tenths of a year across the 20 other comparable countries. Healthy life expectancy for men in the UK has fallen from 62.9 years in the 2012-14 period to 60.7 years in 2022-24 and from 63.7 to 60.9 years for women over the same timeframe, it found. It means that the proportion of life a man spends in good health is down from 79% to 77% and, for a woman, from 77% to 73%, the analysis by the Office for National Statistics showed. Chart showing decline in healthy life expectancy in recent years The decline in Britons’ health in recent years is so significant that, in more than 90% of the UK, people now start suffering from illness before the state pension age of 66, the study revealed. “These findings reveal a stark truth – the UK’s health is going backwards”, said Dr Jennifer Dixon, the Health Foundation’s chief executive. …