Academic: ‘Urgent action needed as improvements in life expectancy at a halt’

IMPROVEMENTS IN life expectancy have almost “ground to a halt”, a leading academic has warned.

Professor Sir Michael Marmot said he was “deeply concerned” that increases in life expectancy had levelled off since 2010. He said the stagnation needs “urgent” investigation. Historically, improvements in life expectancy at birth had been around a one year increase every five years for women and every three and a half years for men.

But since 2010 this has slowed to a one year increase every 10 years for women and every six years for men, new analysis has shown.

Expected rises in life expectancy when people are aged 65 have also slowed.

Sir Michael, who previously chaired a government-commissioned review into health inequalities, said the rate of increases “is pretty close to having ground to a halt”. He added: “I am deeply concerned with the levelling-off; I expected it to just keep getting better. I would say it is a matter of urgency to try and examine why this has happened – it is not inevitable that it should have levelled off.”

He said he could not draw conclusions as to why rises in life expectancy have faltered. But he raised concerns about “miserly” health and social care spending.

“I am deeply concerned that if we do not fund health care and social care adequately people will lead much worse lives,” he said.

“Whether that translates into an increase in mortality or a failure of mortality to go down, I don’t know.”

Sir Michael, who is director of the Institute of Health Equity at University College London, said there are now many more older people, adding: “We’ve got many more older people at very old ages and life expectancy is stagnating so problems that affect older people are going to be more numerous.”

He highlighted that the leading cause of death among the oldest old is now dementia and Alzheimer’s.