We’re Losing Our Healthy Years

[00:00:00]Big thank you to this viewer who suggested today's video and I must admit it is quite alarming. So healthy life expectancy here in the UK is dropping and that's healthy life expectancy not life expectancy and the average healthy life expectancy is now below state pension age.

[00:00:32]all the more reason to start thinking and planning if you can for an earlier retirement in my opinion. And I thought for today's video as well as tackling this could also have a little look at some more of my local history.

[00:00:50]So today we're in the grounds and the ruins of Dunraven Castle which is in Southern South Wales. Love this stone arch.

[00:01:05]That's pretty intact.

[00:01:08]Now, Dun Raven Castle was demolished in the 1960s, which is a massive shame. Um, it was given to the council after the war. I think there was a war hospital here.

[00:01:25]But as so often is the case when families can no longer run these country homes, it was given to the council who could not afford the upkeep.

[00:01:44]I do love looking at artifacts like this. I mean, it was only demolished in the60s, so of course There's going to be a lot left, but it's such a shame.

[00:01:59]And down there, there's a wall belonging to the walled garden. So, I will take you in there, but it sounds like there's a lot of people in there at the moment.

[00:02:14]information information board telling us all about what it looked like. Beautiful. Could have been turned into a hotel or a conference venue, but no.

[00:02:32]Very shortsighted.

[00:02:35]But I guess post war the country had maybe different priorities.

[00:02:56]I very quickly realized I wasn't going to be able to record the video in the walled gardens.

[00:03:03]Um, it's school holidays and it looks as though there's a bunch whole families just turned up to spend the day in the garden which is lovely. It's a lovely safe walled area. Loads to run around and explore. They got their picnic bags.

[00:03:21]Um, looks amazing.

[00:03:23]But yes, no good for recording. And the other thing, oh my god, the flies. the flies and insects in there, which I guess is good, good for the plants, but I was going to get bitten to death because I am like a magnet to bitey insects. And there was a little uh like a pond or a pool thing with all rotting fruit in and the flies were just swarming. I'm getting flies landed on me now. I just can't bear it.

[00:04:02]So, as beautiful as it is around here, love to stay in chats. I think I'm going to go back to Romy [gasps] and do the content of this video from the safety of my van. I think it's become apparent that I'm going to struggle to find anywhere quiet to talk to you today. Just been back to the van.

[00:04:24]It's a lovely chat with somebody else who's uh in a van. Lovely lady. Um, but yeah, the car park's just filling up and really noisy. So, I've come back out and we're going to carry on about this alarming data. It's not new data. Um, but yeah, essentially our healthy years, the years where people are feeling well and are living their sort of healthy years if you like, is dropping. Can you believe it? with the UK being one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Most of all the other countries, by the way, are increasing the years of healthy living. But no, the UK, I think we're 20 out of 21. I think it was the US that actually was worse than us. So, what the heck is going on? Now, I've made some notes on my phone. So, the data has come from the Office of National Statistics.

[00:05:26]And the findings are essentially that this healthy life expectancy, so this isn't as long as you the years you live.

[00:05:34]This is the years of good health. Um life expectancy is is stable. So I guess that's good. But people are living as long but with more illness, more chronic illnesses.

[00:05:50]Um, and now we're looking at the age of 61 before you start suffering with all of this ill health. Interestingly, the report also says that um many more working age adults are living with long-term health conditions more than decades ago. And of course, that has an impact on the economy. So yeah, based on World Health Organization data, um they compared the UK to other nations in Western Europe, the Nordics, North American and Oceanana, and the UK is now ranked 20th out of 21 with only the US seeing its population live for fewer years in good health. So not good news if you are watching this from the US.

[00:06:46]Now, a Department of Health and Social Care spokesman has told the BBC that it is shifting the focus of health care from sickness to prevention.

[00:07:02]And I have to say I find that interesting, shall we say, because having worked in health care myself as a nurse, I did my district nurse qualification, which was a a post nursing qualification to become qualified to be a district nurse. I did that in the early 90s. I think it was 1992 or 1993.

[00:07:31]I'm on this cliff path and I didn't realize it goes so close to the edge.

[00:07:37]Um, yeah, I think this is far enough down for me. Little sign behind me saying dangerous cliffs.

[00:07:47]Yeah, I did my district nursing course in the ' 90s and we studied all about communities were going to be the place where the prevention of disease happened and we were going to be at the forefront of all of this health protection. 30 years ago, we were talking about the same things about how communities were going to be where all the disease prevention happened and it wasn't going to be about ill health so much now. It was going to be about promoting health and facilities were going to move into the communities away from secondary care and hospitals.

[00:08:35]Now, I've been a patient myself and I've been a family member of several members of my family needing help and and I've said before I will never knock the NHS.

[00:08:46]The NHS is is struggling underresourced and too much bureaucracy and and all the rest of it.

[00:08:56]And I've seen for myself how how stretched the NHS is.

[00:09:05]And the problem starts in A&E, doesn't it?

[00:09:09]When people are admitted, there's nowhere to put them. So people are in armchairs on trolley for days before they can be admitted.

[00:09:19]And then the problem, the bottleneck is is kind of the other end where you've got sort of people who are not needing acute medical beds and there's nowhere for them to go. The the social care is lacking. There isn't enough service for people to go back to homes with social care packages.

[00:09:42]And I've seen the difficulty of that myself with my mother and and trying to get social care adequately provided. It is it is a challenge [snorts] and it is a little depressing to think in 30 years we don't seem to have made progress. In fact, we're going backwards. People's health is getting worse. My personal view is I think health and social services are certainly stretched for sure, but I think we have a responsibility to be more proactive with our own health and that of our children. Most certainly, I think most of us would agree with that. We want to be healthier, but then you've just got to look around to see the very worrying um well, I don't know, tsunami of mental health issues, with addictions, obesity, and I've been there myself with poor eating choices, putting on weight, drinking too much alcohol.

[00:11:06]So, it's not a question of willpower, I don't think, is it?

[00:11:10]And just don't get me started on the fact that we don't advertise cigarettes anymore.

[00:11:21]We keep them hidden in shops. Great. you know, the the smoking was a massive problem, but seemingly children can access vapes. And whereas vapes and ecigarettes were supposed to help people give up smoking, what we're now seeing is that people are taking up vaping as a a cool thing, maybe. I don't know. I have never vaped.

[00:11:48]I've never smoked either, fortunately.

[00:11:51]Um, it's it's kind of a a managing of of anxiety [music] and depression and just what world are we living in when people are in need in this? So many adults walking around [music] vaping. Soon as they come out of a building, they're vaping. I I genuinely worry about it and I don't have any answers. Of course not.

[00:12:14]Um I do think mental health is um massive problem and of course the behaviors from the overeating, the smoking, drugs are a lot of what we're seeing in hospital admissions.

[00:12:39]But I guess as I do talk about early retirement a lot, it does worry and I'm sure well I hope it worries most of you as well. If if you're not retired yet and you're looking at these statistics, what what is life now? You you work [snorts] you work all your life.

[00:13:01]If you haven't provided a pension or some other means of income for yourself, you rely on the state to provide a pension. At the moment, it's 67, but that's going up and up and up.

[00:13:14]And by the looks of it, by the time, even before you're at the age where you can take your state pension, your health is already suffering. So by the time you come to retire, you're not going to be able to have those great go- go years we talk about travel and all the other things because potentially your health is going to be a problem.

[00:13:42]And I think these statistics are bad enough for our generation, but I do worry where where it's going.

[00:13:52]How is it going to improve? I do think CO um has been a massive I don't think we've even seen the long-term health issues from COVID. I don't just mean the health issues of of CO. I mean the mental health issues from that era, the lockdowns, the increase in people alcohol, the loneliness, anxiety, depression.

[00:14:23]I think we've yet to see the full knock-on effects of that time.

[00:14:30]But let me know in the comments what what do you think of this data? Because when um that person asked me to talk about it, I hadn't heard of it. I've got to be honest. Of course, I went to the BBC, found that, but I've also found it. It's it's not the BBC's content. It's come, as I say, from the National um Office of Statistics, and these health um parameters were self-reported. So, it was how people were feeling was where the data came from.

[00:15:01]So yeah, if you're probably in the younger generation, you've now not only got to think of income if you want to retire before state pension age, and I I suggest I would suggest that everyone should be thinking of that. Who wants to be having to work till you're 70 when potentially you're going to have increasing health issues.

[00:15:33]So, I think it's a stark warning. I really do.

[00:15:38]And definitely take on some whatever you can to keep healthy. And I know that's easier said than done. I do.

[00:15:53]I think probably in uh Oh, little skyllock. It's so cute. Uh one of my future videos I'm going to talk about my uh what I'm trying to do for health.

[00:16:07]I've talked a little bit about some aspects of it, but I have, you know, not been the best at managing my health in the past.

[00:16:18]And uh yeah, having had some health issues myself, it is a massive priority for these wonderful retirement years to maximize wellness so that I can get out and enjoy these beautiful places.

[00:16:38]It's awful to get to the end of your working life and realize that I'd like to go out to today, but I'm breathless and I can't manage those hills or my legs aren't going to let me.

[00:16:49]And I am that is something I do need to work on. I I can be a little bit of a lazy bum and a stay at home. And I think I've said getting out filming these videos has been very good for me. Not just physical health, but mental health, too. Let me know in the comments whose responsibility do you think it is for our health and getting this data to change.

[00:17:19]See you on the next video.