Male attitudes to primary care

Findings from the Forum's Opinion Leader survey, March 2016.

Key findings
  • Although the majority of working men would be able to see their GP if they needed to, some groups are less likely to be able to – including those that find it difficult to take time off work for medical appointments.
  • It was expected that self-employment would be a barrier to taking time off work to see a GP, however self-employment enables men to take time off work to see a GP, suggesting that those who are employed face greater barriers.
  • Only 1 in 5 working men over the age of 40 have heard of the NHS Health Check Programme, suggesting this is a significant barrier to attendance.
  • When looking at the drivers and barriers of awareness of the NHS Health Check Programme, children are both; they motivate engagement, but can also drain the time required to engage with the NHS Health Check.
  • Nearly half of employed men with mental health concerns would be embarrassed to take time off work for a mental health appointment.
Watch the slideshow for the full report.

The Men’s Health Forum need your support

It’s tough for men to ask for help but if you don’t ask when you need it, things generally only get worse. So we’re asking.

In the UK, one man in five dies before the age of 65. If we had health policies and services that better reflected the needs of the whole population, it might not be like that. But it is. Policies and services and indeed men have been like this for a long time and they don’t change overnight just because we want them to.

It’s true that the UK’s men don’t have it bad compared to some other groups. We’re not asking you to ‘feel sorry’ for men or put them first. We’re talking here about something more complicated, something that falls outside the traditional charity fund-raising model of ‘doing something for those less fortunate than ourselves’. That model raises money but it seldom changes much. We’re talking about changing the way we look at the world. There is nothing inevitable about premature male death. Services accessible to all, a population better informed. These would benefit everyone - rich and poor, young and old, male and female - and that’s what we’re campaigning for.

We’re not asking you to look at images of pity, we’re just asking you to look around at the society you live in, at the men you know and at the families with sons, fathers and grandads missing.

Here’s our fund-raising page - please chip in if you can.

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