Fife Council to address life expectancy poverty gap with collaboration

Fife Council has said more collaborative working is needed to address a fall in life expectancy in the region.

David Graham, the authority’s health and social care spokesman, said work was already under way to tackle health inequalities.

“Fife already has a number of strong examples of partnership working, but it’s recognised that this needs to go further and work is under way to develop new models of collaborative working within and across services Fifewide and locally,” he said.

Mr Graham was responding to a question from Lib Dem councillor Tim Brett at the last Fife Council meeting.

Mr Brett highlighted recent figures which indicated life expectancy had fallen from 81.5 years to 81.2 years for women and 77.7 to 77.6 for men.

Overall, compared to the period 2013-15, life expectancy stalled across Scotland in 2014-16, with both men and women expected to live just over a month less than before.

Mr Graham said poverty and deprivation were major risk factors, with men in the most deprived areas of Fife expected to live 9.2 years less than those in the most affluent districts.

For women, the gap was 7.3 years.

The councillor highlighted initiatives being rolled out by the Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) and measures being taken under the Plan for Fife aimed at tackling inequality.

“The HSCP has established locality and cluster planning groups in each of the seven localities in Fife.

“These groups, with a strong leadership role for local GPs, are bringing together service providers, the third sector and members of the community to identify priorities for action around health and social care.”

He added: “Action is being taken to ensure that the public service workforce in Fife has the knowledge and skills to identify and support those who are facing inequalities.”