Britain has worst life expectancy in western Europe

The United Kingdom has the worst life expectancy in western Europe, a report has revealed.

People born in Great Britain and Northern Ireland can expect to live until about 80.9 years old, according to the latest data.

This puts the UK behind the average of 81.5 years for the 27 countries across the European Union, and last among western European countries, the analysis from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found.

Improvements in life expectancy for people born in Britain had stagnated in the decade leading up to the pandemic but have fallen since.

The most recent analysis from the Office for National Statistics puts life expectancy in England and Wales for men at 79 years and women at 83 years for 2021-23.

This is about six months and three months shorter, respectively, than it was for 2017-19, which remains the highest level on record.

Experts have previously blamed Britain’s obesity epidemic and the growing burden of preventable illness on the reduced life expectancy, as well as the excess deaths seen in the pandemic.

Meanwhile, the OECD report, called Health at a Glance: Europe 2024, reveals how the UK has fallen behind peers on the continent, with most other countries having recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
Switzerland leads the way with an average life expectancy of 84.2 years, followed closely by Spain at 84 years and Italy at 83.8 – all about three or more years longer than the UK, which ranked 21st out of 39 countries across Europe.

As well as having shorter life expectancies than the Nordic states, France, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, and the rest of western Europe, the UK is also lagging behind Malta, Cyprus, Greece and Slovenia.

The lowest life expectancies reported were in Ukraine and Moldova at 73.4 and 73.3 years respectively but this was based on data from 2019. Georgia’s average life expectancy of 73.7 years was the lowest of those using data from 2022 or later.

The analysis found that the average life expectancy across the EU had increased by a year since last year, while the UK’s had increased by six months.

In last year’s OECD report, the researchers compared the UK with countries across the globe, where its 80.4 year average life expectancy put it behind other developed countries including New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea and Israel.

The OECD also found that women’s life expectancy was longer than men’s across all European countries by an average of 5.3 years.

The authors said “the gender gap in longevity has narrowed by nearly a year since 2010 as the life expectancy of men increased more rapidly than women”.

Explaining why Spain had the highest life expectancy in the EU, Javier Padilla Bernáldez, Spain’s secretary of state for health, said: “Almost everything that is good in Spain related to health is linked to two main situations.

“The first one is the existence of a good healthcare system, very well distributed [across] all the population. The second one is an enormous universal health coverage.”

He said equal access meant all the population were getting older with “a good amount of healthy ageing results”, and that the country had a “very low unmet medical needs” ratio, which protects the elderly from developing disabilities and health conditions that might reduce life expectancy.

He said the country’s “biggest intervention” had been improving access for all to community services such as GPs, pharmacies and dentists, and that it was “succeeding at the aim of protecting the eldest population”.

Mr Bernáldez also praised Spain’s strategy to strengthen nursing and “at-home care services” and the protection of “retired people’s income” which, along with healthcare access, makes “a good lifestyle” possible in retirement.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We are lagging behind our European neighbours in many areas of public health and the situation will not improve without radical action on all fronts. Our 10 Year Health Plan will shift the focus of healthcare from sickness to prevention.
“We’ve already made a strong start by restricting junk food advertising on TV and online, and limiting school children’s access to fast food, while the Tobacco and Vapes Bill will tackle our biggest killer and put us on track to a smoke-free UK.”