Blog by Dr John Chisholm CBE, Self-Care Forum Trustee, Men’s Health Forum Chair and President of the British Medical Association (BMA)
Men’s Health Week 2026 runs from 15 to 21 June. The Week is organised by the Men’s Health Forum, and this year’s theme is ‘men and pharmacy’. The Forum will be publishing a new report focusing on how men can make better use of pharmacies to improve their physical and mental health. Currently, almost three-quarters of men who visit pharmacies don’t discuss their health with a pharmacist, whereas there should be a real opportunity to turn pharmacy visits into greater engagement with preventative health services. The Men’s Health Forum has developed a five-step plan to help pharmacies engage with men: creating a welcoming space; appointing a men’s health champion; offering dedicated services; improving access and guaranteeing privacy; and engaging proactively with men in the local community.
- In 2024, 36 per cent of men died before their 75th birthday, with nearly one in five dying before they were 65.
- Male life expectancy is lower than in many other OECD countries and varies substantially within the UK between the richest and poorest areas.
- Men spend, on average, over a fifth of their lives in poor health and die nearly four years before women.
- Men’s healthy life expectancy is just 61.5 years.
- Men face high rates of suicide, cancer mortality, diabetes, and deaths from heart disease and COVID-19.
- Men of working age are less likely to visit doctors than women.
Premature death and ill health have consequences for society and families, resulting in benefit costs and economic and tax losses.
Faced with such statistics and evidence and given the very real impacts on individual men, their families and society, the Men’s Health Forum has been campaigning for a men’s health strategy for many years. In 2014, the Forum published a manifesto calling for a national Men’s Health Policy including a national strategy. We have worked with other organisations, including Global Action on Men’s Health, the Men and Boys Coalition, Prostate Cancer UK and Movember; have given evidence in Parliament to the Women and Equalities Committee and the Health and Social Care Committee; and have written to previous Secretaries of State.
So it is right to celebrate the announcement of the Government’s commitment to a Men’s Health Strategy for England by Wes Streeting, the former Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, in November 2024 and to welcome the publication of that Strategy a year later, and the establishment of an Academic Men’s Health Network. In between announcement and publication, there was a call for evidence that involved healthcare and charitable organisations as well as input from men and boys. It is right too that there is a Women’s Health Strategy in England, which has been recently renewed and updated. Both Strategies complement each other and should improve outreach (including into the workplace), access to services, gender-informed, gender-responsive and gender-appropriate healthcare, prevention, appropriate screening, research, health outcomes, and the training of healthcare professionals. A gender-blind approach to healthcare is worse for men and worse for women.
It is indeed important to emphasise that looking after men’s health better would produce a healthier, happier and more productive society and would also benefit women and girls.
Although there are increasing differences between the NHSs in the four countries of the UK, the Men’s and Women’s Health Strategies in England may help to inform and influence a strategic, gendered approach to healthcare for men and women elsewhere in the UK.
The Strategy’s action plan includes a number of initiatives which will facilitate and encourage self-care: access to NICE-approved apps and digital health solutions; identifying what works, including through research, to improve health literacy and address health inequalities; building men’s media literacy skills; reaching out to men in ways tailored to their needs, through channels they engage with; improving the uptake of Men’s Health Checks; empowering parents to build their children’s resilience to misleading and polarising online content; and supporting men’s social connection and promoting accessible and engaging services.
We need a holistic, evidence-based, gender-informed approach to men’s health, an approach that addresses the social determinants of health, and societal gender norms and expectations, and is underpinned by research and evaluation. We need to improve men’s health by better addressing and preventing the range of underlying causes and barriers that have a negative impact on men’s health. We need to improve the health literacy of all citizens, including through education in schools, and to facilitate and encourage self-care. It is important too that there is a partnership between Government, NHS Integrated Care Partnerships, local authorities, business, civil society and voluntary sector organisations which advocate for men’s health.
