Angie is preparing to leave the UK for Bulgaria. The 50-something woman, who suffers from ME and an autoimmune thyroid condition, says holidaying in the Bulgarian mountains made such a difference to her health that she decided to move permanently. A strong sense of community and fresh air are part of the draw, but she also feels the Bulgarian healthcare system is more responsive than the one she is leaving behind.
“You have to pay a small fee to see a doctor, but then you see one quickly,” Angie says. She is “very glad” the free at the point of use NHS exists, but believes it is failing to deliver. “People aren’t getting a service – particularly with chronic health issues – that actually makes a difference to their health outcomes or quality of life,” she says. “Once you’re diagnosed, that’s it, you’re left to your own devices. I’ve had to spend a fortune on private healthcare because I couldn’t get any improvements [with]in the NHS.”
“UK healthy life expectancy drops as NHS struggles with chronic care; iron lung patient dies aged 78.”
Angie is part of a growing trend. More working‑age adults are reporting long‑term health conditions – 36% said they had at least one in early 2023, up from 31% in the same period of 2019. A 2025 study from the charity National Voices found 37% of people with a long‑term condition did not feel supported by the NHS to manage their physical health, compared with 16% of those with no such conditions.
Meanwhile, healthy life expectancy – the years a person can expect to live in good health – has fallen in the UK in recent years, while it has increased in most other wealthy countries. In more than 90% of areas, healthy life expectancy has dropped below the state pension age. Britons now live about a quarter of their lives in poor health. Across the country, healthy life expectancy in 2022-2024 was 60.7 years for men and 60.9 years for women.
A different story of survival and loss has unfolded in the United States. Martha Ann Lillard, one of the last polio survivors to live inside an iron lung, died on June 26 at the age of 78. The machine – a 1940s airtight metal tank that generates negative pressure to force the lungs to expand – had become too old to repair. Lillard was diagnosed with polio on her fifth birthday in 1953. “I woke up, and it was sunny outside, and I started to sit up, and my neck was killing me,” she told KFOR last month. “I couldn’t lift my head off the pillow.” She fell unconscious four days later and was unable to breathe or move. “They usually didn’t like to put children in because they fought it, but I didn’t,” she said. Two years later, a vaccine was created, which eradicated polio.
At her sickest, Lillard required the lung for 23 hours a day, using her one free hour to rehabilitate her paralyzed limbs. She later needed it only about nine hours a day, until she contracted Covid-19 twice and shingles. In the months before her death, she needed it 24 hours a day. The iron lung began to break down, and parts from the 1940s were impossible to replace. Her sister, Cindy McVey, said: “Some of the parts are from the 1940s, and they’re hard to locate. We have a spare motor, but we don’t have anyone to put it back in if we needed it.” At one point a tornado knocked out her power; her husband Baha Seleh performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until help arrived.
Despite her confinement, Lillard lived a relatively normal life. She took high school classes over the phone and never attended prom because her free hour was spent in school. A GoFundMe fundraiser in her honour said: “She was incredibly creative, painting, writing poems, and composing music for the left hand piano. Even as post-polio syndrome continued to affect her, she maintained a wonderful fighting attitude, making the most of what she had left and enjoying life as much as she could.”
