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LATEST NEWS
| Gap in Life Expectancy Widens | | | Source: TAEN
The gap in life expectancy in the UK has widened, despite the last government’s attempts to narrow the differences. The news is bound to stimulate the debate around plans to speed up the pace at which state pension age is increased.
In 2000, the last government set a target for the Department of Health to “narrow the health gap between socio-economic groups and between the most deprived areas and the rest of the country, in childhood and throughout life.” In 2002, the government refined this target to reduce inequality by 2010 by 10 per cent as measured by life expectancy at birth and infant mortality.
But a new report from the National Audit Office (NAO) found that although life expectancy overall has increased, the gap in life expectancy between the national average and the government’s dedicated “spearhead” areas has continued to widen. (The spearhead areas are the 70 local authority areas with the worst health and deprivation indicators.) The Department will not meet its target to reduce the health inequalities gap by 10 per cent by 2010, as measured by life expectancy at birth, if current trends continue.
Life expectancy has improved year on year in spearhead areas since 1995-97 and stood at 75.8 years for males and 80.4 years for females in 2006-08. However, life expectancy in spearhead areas has not improved as fast as the whole population and the gap in life expectancy between the two has widened since the baseline, by seven per cent for males and 14 per cent for females.
The NAO concluded that the Department’s strategy, published in 2003, lacked effective mechanisms to achieve the target because the evidence base was still being developed. It was not until 2006-07 that the strategy was matched by focused action to tackle health inequalities, leaving little time for these actions to have an impact before the 2010 target date.
The NAO was unable to conclude that the Department’s approach provided value for money up to this time.
Commenting on its report, Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said:
“The Department of Health has made a concerted effort to tackle a very difficult and long-standing problem. However, it was slow to take action and health inequalities were not a top priority for the NHS until 2006. We recognize that this is a very complicated issue and that it took time to develop an evidence base. However, the best, cost-effective interventions have been identified and now must be employed on a larger scale in order to have a greater impact and improve value for money.
“The Department should target its efforts on the most deprived areas of the country and develop costed proposals to maintain or increase investment in preventative interventions to tackle the conditions which lead to health inequalities.”
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