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

Organisational focus across the whole health system

MEN'S HEALTH MANIFESTO: Support change on the ground – training, leadership, incentives, process and policy
  • National Men’s Health Policy (as in Ireland and Australia) – especially a national strategy for improving the mental health of men and boys
  • Assign responsibility for men’s health and set up men’s health champions in local & national organisations – and in every GP practice
  • Include men’s and boy’s health in all health professional, psychology and PSHE teacher training
  • Include mental health in legal, policing and other front-line service training
  • Support professional development regarding men’s health including communication, targeting and service design – with particular focus on ‘difficult issues’ (eg. mental health/erectile dysfunction/weight etc.)
  • Align health system incentives – including a fair QOF allocation by gender 
  • More personal commissioning and budgeting to enable men to drive change and have services that meet their personal needs
  • Government support to persuade the World Health Organisation (WHO) to include men’s health as a priority
  • Have a joined up local men’s and boys’ health policy and plan – reflect it in the strategy. 

Why is this important?

  • Initial evidence from Ireland is that having a men’s health policy is making a difference.
  • Stakeholders have been very clear that a barrier to improving men’s health is lack of organisational focus and training for practitioners.
  • Local areas with the worst male life expectancy are no more likely to address this in their local health statistics assessment, their JSNA, than are areas with the best male health outcomes.

> Next section: Our challenges to NHS England

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).