Men’s Health Strategy

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for securing this important debate, which provides us with an opportunity to discuss the health issues that affect men across the country. Although I am passionate about tackling the health inequalities that women face, there is no doubt that men also face specific issues.

I thank my hon. Friend for his work as chair of the APPG on issues affecting men and boys. It does a huge amount of work in this area and its report, “The Case for a Men’s Health Strategy”, is compelling reading. I thank him and all the members of the APPG for their work on that. He has discussed with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care the potential merits of a men’s health strategy, and further meetings are planned as part of an ongoing discussion.

I do not want to generalise and put people in different categories, but there is a difference in the way in which women and men access the healthcare system. More than 100,000 women replied to our call for evidence. They told us that they often access healthcare but feel that they are not listened to and that it is a challenge to get the services they want. Men, on the other hand, often do not access healthcare services at all, and that is a significant barrier. They do not come forward for a variety of reasons, and my hon. Friend touched on some of them, including ease of access to services and sometimes the attitudes of employers or colleagues on seeking help. There are different barriers that certainly make a difference. It is true that the average male life expectancy in the United Kingdom is below that of women, although women spend a greater proportion of their lives in ill health and disability.

We also know that male and female life expectancy differs depending on where they live. We are absolutely passionate about ending that. It should not matter where someone lives or where they come from. Everyone should have the same health outcomes. A man in Blackpool can expect to live over 10 years less than a man in Westminster. We will publish our health disparities White Paper later this year to seek to address the gaps in life expectancy for men and women. I am particularly keen that the issues my hon. Friend has raised today are looked at as part of the health disparities White Paper, because he has provided some stark statistics that absolutely need to be tackled if we are to improve outcomes for men in particular.

The Department is already taking action to address conditions that affect men in particular, including suicide, heart disease and cancer, and other risk factors such as smoking. Although I do not want to generalise, we know that some men are less likely than women to seek help or to talk about suicidal feelings, and they can be reluctant to engage with health and other support services. Men are around three times more likely to die from suicide than women, and suicide prevention requires co-ordinated action and a national focus on men’s low uptake of services to help with suicide prevention more broadly.

Over the coming year we will review the suicide prevention strategy for England and focus on high-risk groups, including middle-aged men. I encourage the APPG to take part and scrutinise that to make sure that it addresses the very important issues that my hon. Friend has raised. We are making funding available. Almost £5.5 million is available this financial year through a suicide prevention grant to support the voluntary sector in particular.

I was interested to hear about the work in Yorkshire. My hon. Friend is right that part of the failure of NHS services to reach out to men is that we often expect men to come to those services. Organisations such as Men’s Sheds, where services can be brought to men, are often more effective, so I very much take his point and it is something that we need to look at.

Heart disease is one of the leading causes of death in men. The long-term plan is committed to several key ambitions to improve outcomes for individuals with cardiovascular disease, including enhanced diagnostic support in the community. I hope that our community diagnostic centres will bring healthcare into communities so that men are able to go for tests, screening and appointments slightly more easily than at present. Our ambition is to prevent 150,000 heart attacks, strokes and dementia by 2029, and we hope that our initiatives will improve outcomes for men.

Although smoking rates have fallen consistently across the population, the rates for men remain consistently higher than those for women. Men, however, generally report more success when they attempt to stop smoking, but it is still the case that smoking rates are higher for men than for women. We are undertaking an independent review of our tobacco control policies, led by Javed Khan. The review will make a set of policy recommendations that will give us the best chance to reduce smoking and achieve the Government’s smoke-free 2030 ambition. Again, I encourage the APPG to look at that work and to feed into it.

Finally, I will touch on cancer, because we know that lung cancer outcomes in particular are poorer for men than for women. We are trying to target our diagnostic services towards high-risk groups. One of our most successful areas has been our targeted lung health checks, which took place in 23 locations last year, with a further 20 being rolled out this year. We are using low-dose CT scans and are targeting, in particular, individuals who have smoked for a long time, those in high-risk groups and those in high-risk areas of the country. We are seeing remarkable success rates, with lung cancer being identified at stages 1 and 2 when it would otherwise have taken months for those individuals to show symptoms. Those checks will seek to improve the lung cancer outcomes for men.

[Nick Fletcher]

I believe that a lot of smoking, obesity and alcohol problems stem from men being lonely. Many years ago, there was an advert that said that “You’re never alone” with a certain brand of cigarette I think that many men use those things as comforts and to pass the time. When men are feeling low, they might drink or go to the fridge. The men’s health strategy should look at that, and take an overarching view of all the issues, bringing them together. Clubs such as Andy’s Man Club are a fantastic place for men to talk and to feel valued and part of society, so that they do not feel lonely. When men do not feel lonely, perhaps they do not need to reach for those items that otherwise help them get through the day. I take on board what the Minister said about getting GP and health services to those clubs—that would be a fantastic thing to do. We should then automatically see a reduction in the issues that we are testing for now, such as cancer. However, I do also welcome the centres that the Minister has spoken about.

[Maria Caulfield]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Although we are focusing on trying to diagnose lung and prostate cancer as early as possible, encouraging men to come forward and making them aware of the signs and symptoms, he is right that prevention—reducing smoking, alcohol and obesity—will help keep men healthier for longer. He is right that if men are lonely or do not feel like they have other avenues to meet people and get involved in society, they will reach out to smoking or drinking. Often, gambling is a way to meet people down the betting shop; a racecourse near me is very popular indeed. Men do have a different way of dealing with their emotional problems. They will not often talk about them, but meeting other people is a way of coping with some of the issues they face.

I have touched on several separate issues, which is exactly what my hon. Friend said we should not be doing. However, there is a golden thread running through all of them. The health inequalities for some groups of me, whether in life expectancy, life outcomes or accessing healthcare, are different from the issues and challenges that women face. We should not be dismissive of that, because those challenges are equally important.

I want to reassure my hon. Friend that the health issues facing men are being taken seriously. He has met the Secretary of State already and will be having further meetings. I think that today’s debate, in addition to our previous debate on prostate cancer, is the start of the conversation about how we improve outcomes for men. There are specific issues that they face, but there are also common threads that run through those issues. If we do not tackle those, we will not improve the overall health and life expectancy of men. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend further and to taking up some of the challenges that he has raised.

Question put and agreed to.