A RAFT of recommendations have been issued to tackle growing health inequalities in Darlington, where a ten-year life expectancy gulf has opened up between those whose homes are separated by just one street.

The annual report of Darlington’s director of public health has revealed while the borough is the second best-performing local authority in the North-East for both male and female life expectancy, at 78.2 years for men and 82.1 years for women, it falls well short of the 79.5 and 83.1-year averages for England.

A meeting of Darlington Borough Council’s health and partnerships scrutiny committee was told while the town was relatively compact, men in Hurworth can expect to live 11.6 years longer than males in Park East, and women in Mowden will live, on average, for ten years longer than females in Bank Top.

Public health registrar Dr Malcolm Moffat said the report focused on worsening health inequalities in the borough since 2010 and a “whole system approach” was needed to help turn the tide.

He said: “Since 2010 increases in life expectancy have started to tail off. That’s the first time this has happened since data was collected in the Victorian period. Life expectancy for our more affluent communities has continued to go up, life expectancy for some of our poorest communities has started to go down.

“One of the most stark contrasts is between the neighbouring Park East and Park West wards, divided by Grange Road. Depending on which side of Grange Road you live on there is a life expectancy gap of ten years. Men living in Park West will live on average to 82.2 years, men living in Park East will live on average to 72.9 years.”

Dr Moffatt said the gap between communities was even wider for the age to which people could expect to live without a serious health condition, with the gap between the “best performing and worst performing wards” being 15 years for men and 13 years for women.

The meeting heard the inequalities were being aggravated by a sense of “fatalism” in poorer communities, where it was “considered normal to have a first attack in your fifties”.

Mayor of Darlington and Bank Top councillor Veronica Copeland said there had been a noticeable increase in wheelchair users who had had amputations due to diabetes.

Dr Moffatt said: “What we are seeing in all sorts of areas, including the diagnosis of diabetes, is that those complications are starting to arise earlier in younger and younger people. These inequalities exist in Darlington at every stage of the life process.”

He said while the report had identified no deliveries to teenage mothers in some wards, 3.1 per cent of all births in Northgate were to teenage mothers.

Dr Moffatt added while 23 per cent of 11-year-old children in College ward had been classed as having excess weight, the figure stood at 43.1 per cent in Pierremont and 40 per cent in Bank Top.

The inequalities between the poorest and most affluent wards persisted into adulthood, the meeting heard, with 18.4 per cent of adults in College ward classed as obese compared to 31.1 per cent of Red Hall adult residents and 31.8 per cent of those in Eastbourne ward.

The meeting was told while some of the most effective changes needed to be addressed through national fiscal policy and legislation, there were local actions that could improve equity of access to services and a focus on improving health in vulnerable groups would help avert the inequalities widening.

One of the director of public health’s key recommendations is promoting “a whole system approach” to improve children and young people’s health and wellbeing. This includes identifying maternal issues such as smoking, promoting breastfeeding, providing quality personal social and health education and implementing a local healthy weight plan.

Dr Moffatt said it would also be important to address barriers to getting quality employment and to promote a healthy workforce.

Other recommendations in the report include “taking an asset-based approach to older people’s health”, recognising their contribution and skills and promoting the importance of ageing well.

This would see the promotion of a whole system approach to supporting older adults to remain independent and healthy, recognition of the impact of social isolation, fuel poverty, transport and poverty on health and wellbeing and prevention strategies being reinforced to recognise the negative cumulative impact of inequalities.