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Middlesbrough takes life expectancy low

Residents in the Middlehaven dockland area of Middlesbrough have the lowest life expectancy in England, a report has found.

They have a combined life expectancy for men and women of 67.8, compared with 93.4 years for people in the affluent Moreton Hall area of Bury St Edmunds, the Office for National Statistics said.

The figures came in a report on England’s biggest killer, cardiovascular disease (CVD), which costs the country more than £30 billion a year.

Barbara Young, chairwoman of the Care Quality Commission (CQC), said: “We cannot rest while health inequalities exist on the scale they do.”

The CQC report, Closing the Gap, said patients get different standards of care in different areas “as many primary care services, including GP practices, do not follow proven practice consistently”.

People in the poorest areas may not be getting access to the services they need because GPs in deprived areas are less likely to record whether someone has CVD, the report found.

These people may also have “more complex health and social needs and may suffer greater burden of disease before seeking help”, the CQC said.

The CQC report calls for the maximum payment threshold for GPs’ financial incentives to be increased to encourage doctors to help manage the cholesterol levels of more patients.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .