West Sussex Life Expectancy Targets: Councillor Not Impressed

A councillor said she was horrified that a West Sussex public health target had been drawn up with men having a longer healthy life expectancy than women.

During a county council scrutiny committee meeting, members discussed changes and additions to a number of Key Performance Indicators relating to the corporate plan.

One of those indicators listed a healthy life expectancy target of 66 years for men and 64.8 years for women.

Kirsty Lord (Lib Dem, Hassocks & Burgess Hill South) was less than impressed with the targets.

During the meeting at County Hall, Chichester, she said:

“As a woman living in West Sussex, I’m horrified that this council is setting a target that thinks it’s OK for me to have 1.2 years’ less healthy life than Cllr Boram sat next to me.”

Responding to chuckles from others, she said:

“It’s not even laughable, it’s outrageous that we’ve got a target that thinks women’s healthy lives are less important and we’re setting less of a target for women than men.”

The Key Performance Indicators set targets and measure the progress made in meeting the priorities of the corporate plan – keeping people safe from vulnerable situations, a sustainable and prosperous economy, helping people and communities fulfil their potential, and making the best use of resources, with all underpinned by tackling climate change.

A list of 15 indicators were being considered for approval.

Ms Lord called for the healthy life expectancy targets to be removed from the list.

She said:

“There’s no excuse for this council to prioritise men having a longer healthy life than women – it has to be changed, it can’t go in as a target – it’s outrageous if it does.”

But at a later meeting of the cabinet on Tuesday (September 14), Bob Lanzer, cabinet member for public health & wellbeing, explained that the figures had come via the Office for National Statistics and were the latest from 2017-2019.

Mr Lanzer said the council was committed to reducing health inequalities.

He added:

“One of the reasons for setting the 2017-2019 outcomes as the continuing target is because there’s evidence to suggest that the pandemic will have an influence on these figures and tend to reduce them, potentially for both men and women.

“The national level of healthy life expectancy for men is stalling and that for women is declining.”

Mr Lanzer said that preserving the pre-Covid healthy life expectancy figures would be ‘a good result’, especially given that women are more susceptible to Long Covid than men.

He added:

“It would be absolutely premature to put into this report misleading healthy life expectancy targets which, being honest with ourselves, we really would not have a great chance of achieving.

“Rather than withdraw the figures – which would suggest a lack of commitment to reducing inequalities – I want to keep the targets in there because we want to hit those inequalities, we want to reduce them.”