One man in five dies before the age of 65.
TOGETHER we can change that.

Forum welcomes Government promises on men's health

20/11/23 . Blog

The Forum welcomes the men's health initiative from the government.

On International Men's Day 2023, they announced:

  • funding for a new prostate cancer screening trail called TRANSFORM
  • the appointment of a men's health ambassador
  • a men's health task-force to develop ways to engage men with their health and increase uptake of NHS health checks
  • improvements to the NHS website's men's health pages

As you can see in the flyer below, the government even used the Forum's corporate colours to do it! 

It is particularly pleasing to see the NHS health checks championed. They're useful in themselves in addressing men's health issues like heart disease and also help normalise engagement with the NHS.

If implemented, these could all be steps in the right direction although they fall short of the men's health strategy we've calling for to run alongside the women's health strategy. The existing Women’s Health Ambassador, gynaecologist Lesley Regan, was explicitly appointed last year to 'support the implementation of the upcoming women’s health strategy for England'. The Men's Health Ambassador should have a similar role.

Moreover, none of this should distract government from the need to get the fundamentals of the NHS right. Without action on waiting lists, access to primary and secondary services and staffing numbers and morale, these promises will appear very token. Effective prostate cancer screening, for example, will save the NHS money in the long run but in the short term it requires a service able to deliver it. Without action to address the decline since 2010, the NHS will struggle to do that or, indeed, to do anything that the Ambassador or task force might suggest.

Jim Pollard
Editor

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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Charity registered in England and Wales (no. 1087375). Company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (no. 4142349).