Key facts
- Healthy life expectancy in the UK has dropped, with men now expecting 60.7 years and women 60.9 years in good health.
- This represents a decline of 1.8 years for men and 2.5 years for women compared to 2019-2021.
- The UK is among only five of the world's 21 richest countries to experience a decline in healthy life expectancy.
- A significant portion of Britons with long-term health conditions feel unsupported by the NHS.
- The UK's healthcare system is tax-funded and state-provided, contrasting with mixed public-private systems in countries like Bulgaria and the Netherlands.
Healthy life expectancy, a measure of the years individuals can expect to live in good health, has declined in the UK, a trend not mirrored in most other wealthy nations. This decline, particularly pronounced in more deprived areas, contrasts with a recovery in overall life expectancy post-pandemic. The issue is prompting a debate about the sustainability and effectiveness of the UK's National Health Service (NHS), a tax-funded, state-provided system.
One perspective, articulated by Gareth Lyon of the think tank Policy Exchange, suggests the UK's model, which lacks competition, contributes to inefficiencies and a failure to adapt to patient needs. Lyon points to disparities in GP appointment access and waiting times for non-urgent surgery compared to countries like the Netherlands, which employs a compulsory health insurance system with provider competition. He advocates for a similar model in the UK to incentivize efficiency and better patient outcomes.
Conversely, Sebastian Rees from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) challenges the notion that competition inherently improves healthcare. His analysis indicates that performance variations exist within different funding models, and the NHS's struggles may be more attributable to chronic underinvestment. Rees also highlights significant differences in population characteristics between the UK and the Netherlands, such as obesity rates, poverty levels, and disposable income, suggesting these socio-economic factors play a more substantial role in driving healthy life expectancy than healthcare system structure alone.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson asserted that the government is prioritizing prevention and reducing health inequalities, noting improvements in GP patient satisfaction and a reduction in waiting lists. However, the stark disparities in healthy life expectancy across different regions within the UK underscore the complexity of the issue, with some areas showing a difference of two decades between the healthiest and least healthy.