On Sunday, the Health Foundation published new analysis of ONS data, finding that between 2012/14 and 2022/24 the average Healthy Life Expectancy (HLE) has dropped by two years. The think tank suggested that poor quality housing, poverty and Covid-19 could be causal factors, and concluded that ‘the UK’s health is declining’. The Guardian described this development as a ‘grim picture’. GB News suggested that this new evidence proved that plans to raise the state pension age are unfair. A spokesperson from NHS Alliance drew a different conclusion, telling the BBC that the fall was evidence that the ‘wider determinants of health’ must be ‘tackled’ and that community support must come ‘closer to home’ (the usual NHS-ese bingo).

It may surprise some readers to find out that while ‘healthy life expectancy’ has indeed declined in this period, life expectancy (LE) has actually marginally increased. According to the ONS, life expectancy at birth for women in 2012-14 was 82.79 years, in 2022-24 it was 83.02 years. For men those numbers are 79.05 and 79.12.

So a modest improvement, but improvement nonetheless. And particularly encouraging is that the small dip in life expectancy at birth during the pandemic (the figures........

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