05:59AM, Monday 15 December 2025
Men in Slough spend nearly 20 years living in poor health, while women face declining health from their early 60s, according to latest figures.
In hopes of addressing these and other serious issues, councillors are backing Slough’s health and wellbeing strategy for 2026-2036, following changes to reflect residents’ feedback.
Slough’s joint health and wellbeing strategy was put together in a collaboration between the council, the NHS and partners in the community and voluntary sector.
A public consultation also ran from September to November to gather diverse views on how Slough’s health as a borough can be improved over the next ten years.
Respondents wanted the strategy to go into more detail about the impact the cost-of-living crisis is having on people’s health, as well as to focus on issues such as mental health and weight.
By 2036, the strategy looks to ensure children, young people and families ‘have a good foundation for life’, staying healthy for longer.
For children, vaccination rates for preventable diseases will be boosted, with a whole-school approach to promote a healthy weight and good oral health.
At a health and wellbeing board meeting on Tuesday (December 9), the draft strategy and a health inequalities report were presented to councillors.
The report said Slough’s health inequalities are caused by the ‘insecure housing’ within the borough, deprivation levels, and income disparities among residents.
The areas in Slough with ‘severe pockets of deprivation’ include Birtwell, Chalvey, Elliman and Wexham Court, according to the report.
It added that in the borough, men live until 77 years old but start living with poor health from the age of 58.
Women live until 82, but their health starts to deteriorate from the age of 62.
At the Observatory House meeting, Tessa Linfield, Slough’s director of public health and public protection, said:
“[The strategy] speaks around the fact that our young people population is going to grow, it speaks around our overcrowding and around the prominence of heart disease, diabetes, obesity.”
The report said that Slough faces a ‘significantly higher’ prevalence of diabetes than national and regional levels, with 66 per cent of adults in the borough affected by obesity.
The strategy recognised that Slough has ‘concerningly’ low levels of physical activity among its residents to be able to prevent such illnesses.
But as part of the consultation process, residents said that Slough needs to have more safe routes for walking and exercise.
The report said: “[The strategy will] embed a public health approach to tackling serious violence, harm, domestic abuse. [It will] create safe, inclusive environments that encourage physical activity and improve access to green spaces.”
The final version of the health and wellbeing strategy is due to launch in March 2026.
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