The town where you can live 26 years longer: Britain’s gulf in life expectancy revealed

GPs are not testing enough patients for cholesterol levels, especially patients in deprived areas, says the report.

And even where they are testing, in many cases they are doing nothing to help patients get their rates down.

The Government has already met its target of cutting heart disease deaths among under-75s by at least 40 per cent by 2010 – but the commission says more can be done.
The UK still has one of the highest rates of CVD in Europe. Caused mainly by obesity and smoking, CVD costs the country more than £ 30billion a year.

Barbara Young, who chairs the commission, said: ‘We cannot accept that more people die here prematurely from CVD than in other countries. And we cannot rest while health inequalities exist on the scale they do.

‘People in the richest area can expect to live up to 26 years longer than people in the poorest.

‘We have to raise the bar of acceptable performance, upping the level GPs and primary care practitioners are being asked and incentivised to perform to.’

Another finding of the report was that GPs in deprived areas were less likely to prescribe nicotine-replacement products to patients, despite them having some of the greatest need.

A separate scientific study, published today in the British Medical Journal, reports that smoking and obesity can cut up to 15 years off life expectancy.