{"id":42953,"date":"2018-09-05T11:40:11","date_gmt":"2018-09-05T10:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=42953"},"modified":"2018-10-10T16:15:47","modified_gmt":"2018-10-10T15:15:47","slug":"samir-dawlatly-uk-life-expectancy-figures-mask-growing-health-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2018\/09\/05\/samir-dawlatly-uk-life-expectancy-figures-mask-growing-health-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"Samir Dawlatly: UK life expectancy figures mask growing health problems"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2018\/08\/samir_dawlatly_2018.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-42838\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2018\/08\/samir_dawlatly_2018-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2018\/08\/samir_dawlatly_2018-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2018\/08\/samir_dawlatly_2018.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">While the average life expectancy continues to rise in the UK, there are worrying trends within the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ons.gov.uk\/peoplepopulationandcommunity\/healthandsocialcare\/healthandlifeexpectancies\/bulletins\/healthstatelifeexpectanciesuk\/2014to2016\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">statistics<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. I do not think it possible for life expectancy to keep rising inexorably. In the same way that we wouldn\u2019t expect the world record for the 100 metre sprint to keep falling, we cannot realistically expect to keep living longer and longer. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">That aside, I have two main concerns which are hidden by the headline figures. Firstly, the inequalities that exist in life expectancy in <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ons.gov.uk\/generator?uri=\/peoplepopulationandcommunity\/healthandsocialcare\/healthandlifeexpectancies\/bulletins\/healthstatelifeexpectanciesuk\/2014to2016\/5db9a0f7&amp;format=csv\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">different regions of the UK<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> are worrying because there appears to have been little progress in addressing them. It makes me feel that whatever I do to help my patients, in the grand scheme of things, I only have a small impact on their health, because as little as <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.health.org.uk\/sites\/health\/files\/What-makes-us-healthy-quick-guide.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">10% of their health is due to the healthcare they receive<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Being unable to effectively have an impact on the social determinants of health is frustrating.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Secondly, headline figures of overall life expectancy hide the trends in healthy life expectancy. This can be expressed as either the number of years spent in good health, as defined by the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ons.gov.uk\/peoplepopulationandcommunity\/healthandsocialcare\/healthandlifeexpectancies\/bulletins\/healthstatelifeexpectanciesuk\/2014to2016\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">ONS<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, or the percentage of life expectancy spent in good health. In other words, it\u2019s not just about the quantity of years, but the quality of those years. This has enormous relevance to health and social care, because it is those people who are no longer in \u201cgood health\u201d who are the main users of health and social care.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the period, 2014-2016 women in the UK, on average, lived to 82.9 years old, but over 19 of those years were spent in poor health. This is an <\/span>increase <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">on the average amount of time spent in poor health compared to 2009-2011. So although life expectancy increased between the two time periods the reported proportion of life spent in good health actually went down. The same trend is apparent for men (see <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ons.gov.uk\/peoplepopulationandcommunity\/healthandsocialcare\/healthandlifeexpectancies\/bulletins\/healthstatelifeexpectanciesuk\/2014to2016\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">ONS<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> report).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">When compared to European countries, recent figures for suggest that UK healthy life expectancy is about <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/eurostat\/statistics-explained\/index.php?title=File:Healthy_life_years,_2015_(years)_YB17.png\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">average<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, though there is a lot of variation between countries. It\u2019s worth noting that the two standout countries as far as life expectancy is concerned (<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/eurostat\/statistics-explained\/index.php?title=File:Life_expectancy_at_birth,_1980-2016_(years).png\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Malta and Sweden<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">) also have the highest absolute and relative levels of healthy life. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So it would seem that although we continue to live longer than ever before, which is the case in most countries, advances in life expectancy are slowing, perhaps due to a combination of the limitations of the human body, healthcare or, more likely, the lack of willingness to address the social determinants of health. It remains to be seen if we can increase the quality as well as the quantity of life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Samir Dawlatly\u00a0<\/strong>is a GP partner at Jiggins Lane Medical Centre in Birmingham. The views expressed here are his own and don\u2019t necessarily represent those of any organisation he works for.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Competing interests<\/strong>: I am a GP partner at Jiggins Lane Medical Centre, a partner of Our Health Partnership. I am an occasional member of the RCGP online working group on overdiagnosis.The views expressed here are my own and don\u2019t necessarily represent those of any organisation I work for. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While the average life expectancy continues to rise in the UK, there are worrying trends within the statistics. I do not think it possible for life expectancy to keep rising [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2018\/09\/05\/samir-dawlatly-uk-life-expectancy-figures-mask-growing-health-problems\/\">More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[236],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nhs"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Samir Dawlatly: UK life expectancy figures mask growing health problems - The BMJ<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2018\/09\/05\/samir-dawlatly-uk-life-expectancy-figures-mask-growing-health-problems\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Samir Dawlatly: UK life expectancy figures mask growing health problems - The BMJ\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"While the average life expectancy continues to rise in the UK, there are worrying trends within the statistics. 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