People living in Coventry and the West Midlands are continuing to outlive those in southern parts of the country by a narrowing margin, according to fresh research.
The health think tank uncovered that despite life expectancy hitting unprecedented levels across the country in 2025, the benefits have not been shared equally throughout Britain.
The organisation pointed to a three-year gap separating London from the North East, blaming increased levels of hardship in northern parts for this difference.
The King’s Fund judged the Government’s ambition to raise healthy life expectancy for everyone in England while narrowing the divide between the richest and poorest parts of the country by half as appearing unattainable.
Reaching these targets would demand health advancements on a level not seen in recent decades, the organisation warned.
For almost half of England’s population dwelling in northern regions – including the North East, North West, Yorkshire and The Humber, and the East and West Midlands – life expectancy has persistently ranked lowest in the country.
The ten-year period ending in 2023-25 brought little or no headway in these areas.
By comparison, life expectancy climbed in London, the South East, South West and East of England, even though London endured the sharpest fall during the pandemic.
Equally worrying were the figures concerning how many years individuals spend in good health. Overall, healthy life expectancy is contracting, having fallen by approximately two and a half years in the decade leading up to 2022-24.
Figures show that during 2022-24, men in the least deprived ten percent of English neighbourhoods could expect to live around a decade longer than those in the most deprived ten percent, while for women the difference was eight years.
However, the gap in healthy life expectancy was even more pronounced – stretching to two decades.
This indicates that people in the most disadvantaged areas not only die sooner but also experience a larger share of their lives in poor health.
A detailed examination of Londoners alongside those in the North East showed that northerners endure especially poor results in areas such as early deaths from heart disease and cancer, together with suicide and deaths caused by alcohol and drug misuse.
UK life expectancy is additionally now the lowest of all similar high-income nations, apart from Germany and America.
Veena Raleigh, a senior fellow at the King’s Fund, said people in northern and deprived communities had experienced minimal or no gains in how long they live over a decade, in contrast to the health improvements seen by those in southern and more affluent areas, which was disgraceful for a wealthy nation.
She said addressing this unfairness in the country’s health was not simply a matter of fairness, it would ease pressure on the NHS and the substantial economic expenses of poor health.
She said improving the population’s health and narrowing deep-rooted health inequalities had never been more pressing yet also more difficult, given the financial limits the country faced.
She said it would demand unified, courageous action across government to reduce largely avoidable illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes linked to unhealthy eating, drinking and smoking, and address the broader factors causing ongoing ill health, especially in northern and deprived communities.
She said one of the three significant changes in the Government’s Ten Year Health Plan was moving from treating illness to preventing it.
She said after one year, the limited steps taken in this direction fell far short of the bold action required to improve public health, narrow inequalities and extend people’s lives and the years they spend in good health.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said where someone lived should never determine how long they lived, and this Government was committed to addressing the stark inequalities that still persisted across Britain.
They said measures were already underway, from distributing GP funding more equitably to establishing innovative Neighbourhood Health Centres in the places that needed them most.
They said they would now go further by giving power to local communities, placing decision-making with those who understood their areas best, and delivering lasting transformation across the country.