Health inequalities are affecting older generations in the North - Jayne Dowle

At a university reunion last year, we got talking, as people of our generation do, about our parents and how they were bearing up in their eighties and even nineties. As the only northerner there - my friends and their families live in London, the Midlands and the South West - I was struck by the active and generally healthy lives a lot of these parents were enjoying, and the contrast I found with the parents of my friendship group here in South Yorkshire.

Obviously, some of my university friends had lost a parent, but most had at least one who was still hale and hearty, walking and swimming, engaged in local activities and enjoying a relatively healthy life.

And whilst I do have friends here with healthy elderly parents, the numbers are much smaller; dementia, stroke, heart failure, cancers and Parkinsons’ disease have taken their toll. Indeed, only a fortnight before our reunion, my own mother had died at the age of 81 with myriad health and medical issues, including osteoarthritis exacerbated by years working in sewing factories in South Yorkshire.

Now new research by the respected health charity The Kings Fund reveals startling differences between life expectancy in the North of England and London and the South East.

Overall, people in more affluent areas live on average for six to seven years longer in good health than those in the most deprived regions.

Although 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, the gains were overwhelmingly in the south.

In northern locations including Kingston upon Hull, Blackpool and Middlesbrough, men are only expected to live until the age of 75.5 years at best, with the Lancashire seaside resort reporting the lowest male life expectancy of 73.7. Women in Blackpool live, on average, another six years, and in Kingston upon Hull and Middlesborough, they will reach 80.4 and 80.5 respectively.

Elmbridge in Surrey enjoys the highest life expectancy, 86 for women and 82.4 for men, followed by Waverley, also in Surrey (85.9 and 82.4) and South Cambridgeshire (85.4 and 82.5).

However, although in general life expectancy is increasing, the picture is more complex. 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. This means that those in the most deprived parts of England not only have shorter lives but spend more years suffering from debilitating conditions, exerting a toll on themselves, their families, the NHS and social care.

“That people in our northern and deprived communities have seen little or no improvement in longevity over a decade, in contrast to the health gains in their southern and more well-off counterparts, is a mark of shame for an affluent country,” says Veena Raleigh, senior fellow at The King's Fund.

The report argues that London's strong economy, higher wages and better job opportunities underpin people living longer and healthier lives.

Meanwhile, many northern communities are still living with the effects of industrial decline, not just in terms of the direct effect of working in heavy industry on health, such as disease and disability, but also in the economic downturn that has followed in the wake of the closure of pits, mills and factories.

The Kings Fund underlines this, claiming that higher levels of poverty, unemployment and poorer living conditions contribute to worsening health and shorter lives. You only have to drive around some of our larger cities and towns to see this; the shocking housing, filth-strewn streets, multi-generational worklessness and the hopelessness that accompanies it all.

As Raleigh argues, “addressing this inequity in the nation's health is not just a matter of social justice, it would reduce pressures on the NHS and the high economic costs of ill health”.

This makes sense, but too often health is a political football, with policy subject to the whims of whoever is in power and no consensus on pulling together to obtain the best outcomes for everyone.

The Kings Fund is calling for “concerted, bold, cross-governmental action” to reduce largely preventable illnesses such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes associated with poor diet, alcohol consumption and smoking, and tackle the wider issues driving persistent poor health, especially among less-favoured communities. This might include better education about keeping healthier for longer.