\n<\/p>\n
The north-south divide in life expectancy in England has grown over the past decade, with people in northern regions facing more illnesses such as heart disease and cancer, but also suicides and deaths related to alcohol and drug misuse.<\/p>\n
Provisional figures show life expectancy reached an all-time high in 2025, with men and women in England living, on average, for 80 years and nearly 84 years respectively, but the gains were overwhelmingly in the south, the King\u2019s Fund said.<\/p>\n
Despite suffering the sharpest fall in lifespan during the Covid pandemic, life expectancy in London rose by nearly a year in the decade to 2023-25. The south-east, south-west and east of England also recorded gains.<\/p>\n
But the half of England\u2019s population who live in five northern regions, namely the north-west, the north-east, Yorkshire and the Humber, West Midlands and East Midlands, experienced little or no rise in life expectancy over the same period, reflecting greater levels of deprivation.<\/p>\n
According to the health charity, people in London can now expect to live three years longer than those in the north-east. Even starker disparities emerged at the local level, with life expectancy in Blackpool, Lancashire, being 10 years shorter for men and eight years shorter for women than in Hart, Hampshire.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the most deprived 30% of areas, life expectancy either fell or didn\u2019t improve over the past decade and that\u2019s a disturbing story,\u201d said Veena Raleigh, a senior fellow at the King\u2019s Fund. \u201cMeanwhile, it went up by half a year in the least deprived 30% of areas.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the past decade, the north has fallen further behind, and the plans for levelling up and the regeneration of the north haven\u2019t materialised,\u201d Raleigh added. \u201cThis isn\u2019t just a question of fixing the health service. It requires a cross-government drive to also address the wider, underlying determinants of health, for example, ensuring people have secure jobs, fair pay, adequate housing, clean air, accessible transport and affordable access to healthy diets.\u201d<\/p>\n
The government\u2019s 10-year plan for the NHS aims to increase healthy life expectancy \u2013 the number of years people spend in good health \u2013 for everyone in England, while halving the gap between the richest and poorest. But the King\u2019s Fund called the goal \u201cunrealistic\u201d, requiring improvements in population health on a scale not seen in decades.<\/p>\n
Healthy life expectancy fell in all regions of England in the decade to 2022-24, with people now spending on average about 2.5 years longer in poor health, the charity found. The regional divide has remained unchanged at about six to seven years, but can reach 20 years between the most and least deprived regions. The figures mean those in the most deprived parts of England have shorter lives and spend more years in poor health.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough the government\u2019s 10-year health plan promises a shift from sickness to prevention, the focus is mainly on reducing waiting lists and waiting times,\u201d Raleigh said. \u201cPublic health and prevention of ill health need to be much higher up the policy agenda, for example, to tackle the rising prevalence of obesity.<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotionFree newsletter | Every weekday<\/p>\n
Sign up to First Edition<\/span><\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cThe increasing prevalence of ill health in adults of working age, in particular, is deeply concerning because it risks jeopardising the life course of some young people with, additionally, the high costs of rising economic inactivity.\u201d<\/p>\n A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said the government\u2019s aim to halve the gap in healthy life expectancy reflected the \u201cscale and complexity of the challenge\u201d. They said \u00a32.2bn was being repurposed for critical resources such as medicines and medical equipment in deprived areas.<\/p>\n \u201cSomeone\u2019s postcode should never dictate how long they live, and this government is determined to tackle the stark inequalities that still exist across Britain,\u201d the spokesperson said. \u201cWe\u2019re already taking action, from allocating GP funding more fairly to delivering pioneering neighbourhood health centres in the areas that need them most. But we will now go further in devolving power to local communities, putting decision-making into the hands of those who know their areas best and driving lasting change across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The north-south divide in life expectancy in England has grown over the past decade, with people in northern regions facing more illnesses such as heart disease and cancer, but also suicides and deaths related to alcohol and drug misuse. Provisional figures show life expectancy reached an all-time high in 2025, with men and women in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[2456,2850,2280,5579,37,337,4054,25071,1099],"class_list":{"0":"post-51423","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-englands","9":"tag-expectancy","10":"tag-gap","11":"tag-grows","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-life","14":"tag-longevity","15":"tag-northsouth","16":"tag-record"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}