The Stats of the Nation: Health
More or Less
BBC
4.6 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 6 January 2026
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What kind of state does the UK find itself in as we start 2026? That’s the question Tim Harford and the More or Less team is trying to answer in a series of five special programmes.
In the second episode, we’re asking some interesting questions about health and the NHS:
Has life expectancy in the UK starting to go up again at last?
What statistics tell you about the health of the NHS?
After years of promises, are there actually any more GPs?
What’s happening to cancer rates in the UK?
What’s gone wrong with productivity in the health service?
Get in touch if you’ve seen a number in the news you think we should take a look at: moreorless@bbc.co.uk
Contributors:
Stuart McDonald, Head of Longevity and Demographic Insights at the consultancy Lane Clark & Peacock (LCP) Jon Shelton, Head of Cancer Intelligence at Cancer Research UK Ben Zaranko, Associate Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Credits:
Presenter: Tim Harford Reporter: Nathan Gower Producers: Lizzy McNeill, Katie Solleveld and Charlotte McDonald Series producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Maria Ogundele Sound mix: Sarah Hockley and Neil Churchill Editor: Richard Vadon
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:07.6 | Police, drop your weapon! |
| 0:09.9 | In 2025, we were here for the investigators, gangster. |
| 0:14.1 | They were stealing money from wealthy institutions. |
| 0:17.5 | Debt was fair game. |
| 0:18.9 | Murder, they wrote. |
| 0:19.9 | He was a preacher, a good guy. |
| 0:21.4 | But now he's dead. |
| 0:23.0 | It has all the marks of a sort of like a proper horror film. |
| 0:26.3 | And fame under fire. |
| 0:27.8 | He is no longer afforded the right of a regular citizen. |
| 0:31.4 | He is guilty until proven innocent. |
| 0:33.3 | Get the best of 2025 with podcasts on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:38.7 | Hello and welcome to the second in a special series of programmes for more or less with me, |
| 0:44.3 | Tim Harford. Every day this week, we're going to take on some of the big statistical questions |
| 0:49.4 | that say something interesting about the state of our nation. Yesterday, the theme was the economy. |
| 0:55.0 | And if you missed it, you can catch up on BBC Sounds. Today, we're looking at health. |
| 1:03.7 | It's Tuesday. Normally a life scientific, but here on more or less, we reckon those |
| 1:09.8 | scientists get plenty of glory. |
| 1:12.3 | You know who never gets their moment in the sun? Acture is. |
| 1:16.1 | So let's take a swing at a life actuarial. |
| 1:20.5 | Life expectancy is one of those metrics that tells you something very important about the state of our nation. |
... |
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