UK 'must do more to reduce preventable deaths''

Health secretary Jeremy Hunt will today (March 5th) tell Parliament that as many as 30,000 patients die each year because of NHS failings.

These comments come alongside the release of figures that show the UK is lagging behind other comparable nations in reducing premature deaths.

As a result, it is believed Mr Hunt will today call for all people to undergo regular health checks from middle age onwards, in an effort to reduce deaths from heart disease, strokes, cancer, respiratory and liver disease.

"Despite real progress in cutting deaths we remain a poor relative to our global cousins on many measures of health, something I want to change," he is expected to say.

Between 1990 and 2010, life expectancy in the UK rose by 4.2 years to 79.9 years. However, in 1990, the country was ranked tenth in a 19-nation table of years of life lost per 100,000 members of the population. By 2010, it had dropped to 14th.

Despite this, NHS spending has risen from £45 billion (at 2011 prices) in 1991, to £121 billion in 2011.

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