Men, on average, have lower life expectancy than women – by around four years in the UK. They account for three-quarters of all deaths by suicide and are more likely to smoke and be overweight. Young men are more likely than young women to die as a result of accidents, violence or overdoses. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men, with around 12,000 deaths every year. A public consultation on whether to introduce screening for the disease opened last week, after an expert committee advised against it.
So the men’s health strategy for England launched recently by the health secretary, Wes Streeting, should be welcomed on principle. Just as a women’s health lens helps policymakers to focus on female reproductive health and risks, a men’s health lens should enable specific problems to be targeted more effectively.
The question is whether our overstretched health system is in a position to use this new tool as it would need to be used if outcomes are to improve. If it isn’t, the document won’t do any harm, but it won’t do much good either, beyond providing an officially endorsed summary and some potentially useful messaging.
In terms of resources, the strategy comes with £300m in 2025-26 for community health projects. While this is a useful pot for primary-care innovators to draw on, it is not enough to make a difference nationally. More significant is the upcoming review of the GP funding formula, which ought to result in more funding for poorer areas where people are, on average, less healthy. There is also a pledge to improve data, disaggregating it by sex but also other characteristics, to make the vulnerabilities of specific groups (such as men from particular ethnic minorities, or gay men) clearer.
Other new commitments include a campaign to encourage walking and running, following the success of the NHS’s Couch to 5k app. The strategy also signals the government’s support for peer and lived-experience support networks as part of drug and alcohol treatment programmes, and in cancer care. Pilot projects launched under the government’s Get Britain Working strategy have particular relevance to young men who are more likely than young women to be Neet (not in education, employment or training).
The new Men’s Health Academic Network, which will provide expert advice, sounds useful, but will need to select its priorities among the daunting number of questions that are raised in the strategy. These include the impact of social media use on the mental health of men and boys, a possible link between internet pornography and sexual dysfunction, and the suggestion that men on average have lower levels of “health literacy” than women.
Improving men’s health – including better detection of male cancers – is sensible public policy in its own right and, if communicated well, may also resonate with voters. One £42m trial of prostate cancer screening is already under way. What this strategy, and campaigns related to it, must not become is a distraction from a deeply troubling bigger picture. Enormous waiting lists for treatment and the disruption caused by a costly NHS reorganisation are a problem for men with addiction problems, prostate cancer or any other illness, just as they are for everyone else.
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