Chief Medical Officer writes to Forum

26/02/16 . News

England's CMO Dame Sally Davies published her latest annual report on: The health of the 51%: Women. The Men's Health Forum CEO Martin Tod welcomed her annual report in a letter and thanked her for taking a gendered approach to health. He concluded the letter by saying: 'We would strongly welcome a similar report on men and boys’ health next year' .

On 18 February Dame Sally Davies wrote Martin back thanking him for his letter and promising to keep our request in mind when deciding on a future report. We were also delighted to read that the CMO wrote:

As you note, men and boys sometimes have unique and distinct physical and mental health needs, and it is important that we ensure those needs are ment, and that the health system is mindful of the relationship between gender and health.

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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