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

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New health secretary a friend to men's health

19/08/26 . News

The Forum has welcomed the appointment of Yvette Cooper as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.

The Forum's chair Dr John Chisholm described it as 'good news for men's health and an opportunity to continue the commitment of her predecessor Wes Streeting and the DHSC to implementing the Men's Health Strategy for England'.  

Yvette Cooper is well-aware of the importance of men's health and the issues around it. When she was a health minister previously in Tony Blair's government, she was strongly committed to addressing and reducing health inequalities and to developing gender-responsive services. In 2001, she even wrote the foreword to the first edition of the Men's Health Journal, the then journal of the Men's Health Forum. Much of what she wrote 25 years ago remains true today.

Addressing men's health, she said, 'is not about choosing between men's health and women's health.'  She also noted that 'Action to improve men's health won't just help men, it is good for women, society and the economy, too.'  

The Men's Health Forum looks forward to working with the Secretary of State and continuing to work with the Department on improving the health and wellbeing of men and boys.

  • Foreword to the first issue of the Men's Health Journal by Yvette Cooper
  • Interview with Yvette Cooper on men's health from 2000

Both the pages above were first posted on this site in 2024.

 

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.

Registered with the Fundraising Regulator

Contact
Address
  • The Men's Health Forum
  • 82 Tanner Street
  • London, SE1 3GN

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