We are living fewer years in good health: Is the NHS part of the problem?
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- UK healthy life expectancy fell to 60.7 years for men and 60.9 years for women in 2022–2024, down 1.8 and 2.5 years respectively from 2019–2021 — the lowest level since ONS analysis began in 2011; the UK was one of only five of the world's 21 richest countries to see such a decline.
- A 2025 study by National Voices found 37% of people with a long-term health condition did not feel supported by the NHS to manage their physical health, compared with 16% of those with no long-term conditions.
- Policy Exchange's Gareth Lyon argues the UK should adopt the Dutch model of compulsory health insurance, noting half of Britons "always or often" get a same-day GP response versus 8 in 10 Dutch people, and 1 in 5 British patients wait over a year for non-urgent surgery versus zero in the Netherlands.
- IPPR's Sebastian Rees counters that his think tank's analysis of 22 high-income countries found no evidence insurance-based systems outperform tax-funded models, and blames chronic underinvestment, austerity and regional inequality for the UK's decline.
- Prof Martin McKee at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine links the decline to "deaths of despair" concentrated in marginalised groups in Scotland and northern England, noting around one in four 16–29-year-olds experienced moderate to severe depressive symptoms last April.
- The regional gap is stark: a woman in Richmond-upon-Thames can expect two decades longer in good health than one in Hartlepool.
- The Department of Health and Social Care says it is shifting focus from sickness to prevention and that waiting lists are down 340,000 since July 2024.
Why it matters: In more than 90% of UK areas, healthy life expectancy has now dropped below the state pension age, and Britons spend roughly a quarter of their lives in poor health. Whether ministers defend the tax-funded NHS or follow Policy Exchange toward a Dutch-style insurance model will shape whether the country closes or widens its gap with peer nations on years lived in good health.
