Telford's 'healthy life expectancy' falls further below national average

People in Telford and Wrekin are spending more of their final years battling chronic illnesses or disabilities, a meeting heard.

A report to borough councillors this week revealed that females, who live on average nearly four years longer than men, still experience significantly shorter healthy lives.

New figures for females shows they could expect 55.4 years of healthy life in 2022-24, which is 2.2 years lower than for males.

Not only is this nearly six years lower than the England average, it dropped by nearly three years between 2020-22 and 2022-24, the report shows.

When it comes to the males of Telford and Wrekin, their healthy life expectancy is 56.7 years, again worse than the England average.

And it too has dropped by 4.7 years since a 'peak' in 2014-16 when males at birth could expect to get 61.4 years of healthy life.

Telford & Wrekin Council's health and wellbeing board heard that being below the England average for healthy life expectancy is not unusual for the borough.

The committee draws in public health and service leaders from the council, NHS hospitals, and NHS commissioners.

Officials at Thursday's meeting (June 18) were told of a "challenging picture" of life expectancy.

Helen Onions, the council's director of public health, said there is a "significant job of work to do”.

"Early deaths and preventable conditions are a significant contributor to reduced life expectancy.

"One third of preventable deaths in females are due to cancer."

Respiratory diseases, cancers and cardiovascular diseases are an issue, the meeting heard.

But councillors heard of successes including in record numbers of people sending back stool samples for bowel cancer screening.

And there has been a "huge increase" in people starting programmes to stop smoking.

But more children and adults are now considered "overweight or obese", the meeting heard.

Councillors were told that some 'disadvantaged' parts of the borough have much lower healthy life expectancy figures than others.

Councillor Andy Burford (Labour, Dawley and Aqueduct) co-chairs the board.

He said: "We are trying to identify what we can do locally when some issues have national solutions.

"We can close that gap if we can identify the things that will get us some way along that course."

Vanessa Whatley, chief nursing officer at the integrated care board, said: "None of it is going to be straightforward, it is really hard work."

She gave an example of a programme of 'pre-conception care' where mums stop smoking when they are thinking of having children.

She said this has seen a reduction in the percentage of women who are smoking up to the point where they give birth. That is now about 7 per cent of mums, which now compares to the England average instead of lagging behind it.

"If we all do our bit, we will get that population improvement," she said.