Men’s Health Strategy

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Monday 25th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for the advice that he has given me to date on many issues relating to this portfolio. In terms of a specific men’s health strategy, it was quite clear that we needed a women’s health strategy because for many years women’s health had not been given the consideration that it needed, including on a whole range of issues such as clinical trials and data, for example. On male life expectancy, the issues that men face are quite disparate, so we target particular issues such as systemic heart disease, cancers, particularly prostate cancer, the fact that more men than women die from suicide, alcohol-related deaths, drug-poisoning, smoking and obesity. We look at those and target them specifically, rather than putting them into an overall men’s strategy.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, we should not look at men as one homogenous blob. There is more than a nine-year life expectancy difference between men in the top income bracket and those in the bottom 10, which is more than the life expectancy difference between men and women in those brackets. What will the Government do to ensure equity and fairness to tackle this deep-rooted health inequality for some men?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The Government have launched the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities and part of its remit is to make sure that we look at inequalities within the health system, particularly gender inequalities or those to do with income strata, and at how people in different income brackets are affected differently. That is why the word “disparity” is in the name of the office.