A new study has found that the number of years people in the United Kingdom spend in good health has fallen by more than two years over the past decade, with many now experiencing illness before reaching retirement age.
The report, released by the Health Foundation on Sunday, warned that the UK’s health is “deteriorating and slipping further behind comparable nations”.
Its co-author, Andrew Mooney, principal data analyst with the Health Foundation, said the findings highlight a worsening public health situation.
Healthy life expectancy (HLE) in the UK dropped between 2012–2014 and 2022–2024 from 62.9 years for men and 63.7 years for women to just under 61 years for both.
HLE measures the average number of years a person is expected to live in good health, based on mortality rates and self-reported health status.
The report described the measure as a key indicator of population health, offering a broader picture than life expectancy alone.
It warned that the decline marks a “watershed moment”, as the years of good health have now fallen below the UK retirement age, currently 66 and set to rise to 67 in 2026.
“These findings reinforce growing evidence about declining health in the UK, particularly among the working-age population”, the report stated.
It also noted that out of 21 high-income countries, the UK is among only five that recorded a decline in healthy life expectancy between 2011 and 2021, with the second steepest drop overall.
Mooney added that “only the United States now has a lower healthy life expectancy than the UK”.
The study further highlighted widening health inequalities across the country, particularly between affluent and deprived areas.
It said the gap in healthy life expectancy between the most and least deprived areas of England is now 19.4 years for men and 20.3 years for women.
In the affluent London suburb of Richmond, healthy life expectancy stands at 69.3 years for men and 70.3 years for women. In contrast, in Blackpool, one of the more deprived coastal areas in northwest England, it falls to 50.9 years for men.
The report concluded that successive governments have failed to take long-term action to address the decline, warning that this has led to growing economic pressures as well as a significant human cost.
