Mortality rates in the UK are higher than in other high-income countries, new research by the Health Foundation has found.
The mortality rate for females in 2023 was 14% higher than the median of peer countries, while the rate for males was 9% higher in the UK.
The research looked at mortality rates between 1990 and 2023, comparing England and Wales to 21 other high-income countries.
It found that between 1990 and 2023, mortality rates declined for both males and females in the UK, but that most of this improvement was seen before the 2010s.
Between 2011 and 2019, the rate of improvement slowed and then increased in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic.
As of 2023, the UK male mortality rate was 1,165 deaths per 100,000 and the female mortality rate was 843 deaths per 100,000 – ‘largely recovered’ from the peak during the pandemic but still higher than before 2020, the researchers said.
However, they added that these trends in the UK differed from peer countries, as the slowdown in improving mortality rates were ‘less pronounced’ in other countries in the 2010s.
‘The UK’s female mortality rate stayed 4–13% higher than the median throughout the 1990s to the early 2010s, meaning the UK has always performed worse than the median of peer countries in terms of female mortality rate,’ the researchers said. ‘The subsequent plateauing of mortality rates in the UK in the 2010s for both sexes (as other countries improved at a faster rate than the UK) has led to a significant widening of the gap to the median.
‘In 1990, the UK had the 7th highest male and female mortality rate out of 20 countries (excluding Japan and Ireland, because data are not available for the three time points included in this chart). By 2011, the male mortality rate had improved (11th highest) while the female mortality rate stayed fairly similar (6th highest). By 2023, following the slowdown in improvements in mortality rates, the UK position deteriorated for both, with the UK having the 6th highest male mortality rate and 4th highest female mortality rate.’
People aged 25-49 years of age saw a ‘particularly pronounced’ relative worsening of mortality rates between 2012 and 2019. UK mortality rates for females in this age group were 46% higher than the median of peer countries in 2023, the research found. For men in this age group, the UK rates were 31% higher in 2023.
The authors said that sustained action over the long term was needed to reverse these trends.
‘A different future is possible, but only with bold and concerted action led by the UK Government and devolved administrations,’ they said.
They added that they did not seek to set out policy recommendations, but did highlight broad areas of focus that ‘could drive progress’. These included better integration across government departments, setting a goal to improve the nation’s health and reduce health inequalities, and to turn around deep-seated socioeconomic deprivation and health inequalities, including boosting local economies.
It added that policy opportunities and solutions to prevent the early onset of ill health and slow the progress of diagnosed conditions ‘already exist’, including the child poverty strategy and welfare reform, applying population-level approaches to leading risk factors of avoidable ill health and ensuring local government is adequately resourced.
Liberal Democrat health and social care spokesperson, Helen Morgan, said: ‘It is not good enough for ministers to sit on their hands and watch the NHS and the opportunity to live a healthy life decay in this way. We need to see the Government step in as a matter of urgency, to reverse the cuts to the public health grant and bring an end to these devastating deaths.’
It comes after it was suggested that one in five deaths could have been avoided in 2023, according to ONS figures from last month.
