Full story in Pulse, 29 November 2017
Policy makers need to ‘take heed of early warning signs’ and end health service austerity, experts have suggested. This comes as improvements to mortality rates and life expectancy have slowed across Europe, with the UK particularly badly affected.
The International Longevity Centre (ILC-UK) looked at the impact of economic austerity on health outcomes across Europe during the austerity years 2009-13, using data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Eurostat and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
It found that compared to the preceding period (2004-08) improvements to mortality rates fell by 63% in the UK and 26% across Europe.
Progress in life expectancy stalled during the same period in the UK, whilst remaining stable in Europe as a whole.