Rise in life expectancy has stalled since 2010, research shows

A century-long rise in life expectancy has stalled since 2010 when austerity brought about deep cuts in NHS and social care spending, according to research by a former government adviser on the links between poverty and ill-health. Life expectancy at birth had been going up so fast that women were gaining an extra year of life every five years and men an additional 12 months every three-and-a-half years. But those trends have almost halved since ministers made a “political decision” in 2010 to reduce the amount of money it put into the public sector, said Sir Michael Marmot. The upward trend in longer life that began in Britain just after the first world war has slowed so dramatically that women now only gain an extra year after a decade while for men the same gain now takes six years to arrive. The rate of increase was “pretty close to having ground to a halt”, Marmot said. Read more.