Life expectancy in Britain has fallen by three months since 2014

Britain is the only western country other than the opioid-ridden US in which life expectancy has continued to fall after a bad flu outbreak in 2014-15, in a pattern which researchers said was reminiscent of post-Soviet Russia.

Sustained falls in life expectancy should not happen in rich countries and Britain must regard the trends as a “major warning sign”, American academics said.

Flu can only explain a third of the three-month drop since 2014 in how long people can expect to live in Britain and ministers should investigate “extremely important” changes properly, the scientists said.

Alarm over stalling progress in life expectancy has been escalating over the past year. The Times revealed that life expectancy in some parts of the country has fallen by a