South Yorkshire NHS tackling eight-year gap in life expectancy between rich and poor

A report published by South Yorkshire NHS Integrated Care Board highlights the gap as a key issue driving its strategy over five years. The report will be discussed this Wednesday (August 23) at a meeting of Sheffield City Council’s South Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire joint health overview and scrutiny committee.

A summary of the report says: “People of South Yorkshire are living shorter lives than they should. People living in our most deprived areas have both shorter lives and are living those years in poorer health.”

NHS research shows that male life expectancy is 77.3 years, lower than 78.7 years across England as a whole. Female life expectancy is 80.9 years, compared with 82.7 years for England.The gap in life expectancy between the most and least deprived areas in South Yorkshire is 8.7 years for males and 7.6 years for females.

The number of years lived in good health is 59.5 years for males and60.2 years for females (a gap of 3.6 years compared to England). Males and females living in the most deprived parts of South Yorkshire will live on average 19 years more in poor health compared to those in theleast deprived areas, the report states.

Preventable

In his foreword to the report, Gavin Boyle, chief executive officer of the NHS board, described these differences as unfair and avoidable, adding “they are not inevitable and they are preventable”.

The report says that more people are suffering ill health through multiple conditions, as much as 15 years earlier in more deprived areas. The biggest underlying causes of deaths in South Yorkshire are heart disease,Covid-19, dementia, lung cancer, stroke and lower respiratory disease.

“Very poor health and lower average age of death is often experienced by people who have become socially excluded as a result of multiple adverseevents such as homelessness, addiction, racism, violence, crime and complex trauma,” says the report.

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It adds: “Many of the risk factors associated with our main diseases can be changed through preventative and proactive care and support, especially where nearly one in six people smoke, more than a third don’t have their blood pressure controlled to target and two thirds are overweight or obese.”

Work is taking place to improve diagnosis rates for people with dementia, hypertension and cancer. The report also says that people with serious mental illness or learning disabilities are more likely to have physical ill health, so early detection and prevention are key.

The report names four key challenges to improve services. These involve improving ambulance response times to emergencies, eliminating 65-week waits for elective procedures, improving access to mental health support for children and young people and dealing with increasing demand and pressure on primary care services.

Priorities named involve the need to develop the workforce, continue research and development, make best use of resources and work in partnership with people outside the NHS including councils, voluntary sector and community groups.