As doctors, the signs that things are getting worse walk through our doors every day. Patients are developing multiple, long-term conditions at a much younger age than expected, frailty is appearing too soon, and social circumstances — cold homes, insecure work, isolation — are pushing them into medical crises. These are no longer exceptional cases, they are becoming routine.

The Health Foundation’s new report makes for grim reading, but sadly, for doctors across the country, it will simply confirm what we already feared. We are getting sicker at a younger age.

Healthy life expectancy – the number of years people can expect to live in good health – has fallen back to around 61 years in the UK. This generation of youngsters can now look forward to spending a significant portion of later life in poor health, often before even reaching retirement.

Something profoundly, generationally unfair is happening — a child’s postcode is writing the script for their future illness. This is not just about when you are born, but where. Children are not responsible for where they are born, but this sicker generation will be profoundly shaped by it. In England, nearly two decades separate the healthiest and least healthy communities. In Richmond upon Thames, people can expect around 70 years in good health; in Blackpool, it’s little more than 50.

So, what can we say about how place defines health? Secure housing, stable employment, safe neighbourhoods, clean air and access to green space, supported by strong local services – it should be no surprise that these basic foundations lead to healthier lives. Regions do not fall behind by accident; they do so when the conditions that support health are allowed to degrade. Deindustrialised areas corrode health for the same reason basic infrastructure of all sorts corrodes – lack of investment.

We have the tools to change this. The recent progress on the Tobacco and Vapes Bill shows what is possible when the Government prioritises the long-term health of the next generation over short-term interests. We need that same level of legislative courage applied to the other 'foundations' of our lives, from the food we eat to the air we breathe. The question is not whether we can improve healthy life expectancy, but whether we will.

Doctors can only do so much to treat conditions. More beds and more hospital equipment can’t take on the burden of years of early neglect in life. And the NHS was not designed to treat an entire society’s failure.

It is not too late to do something about this deeply worrying trajectory, but it simply can’t be solved by the Department of Health and Social Care alone. The conditions that shape health – work, income security, housing, and social support – sit across government, not within a single department.

The systems designed to support people when health limits their ability to work have a critical role to play. When they function well, they can provide stability, dignity and the opportunity to remain connected to society; when they do not, they risk reinforcing the very inequalities that drive ill health in the first place. Supporting people to remain in, or return to, good work where possible, and ensuring fair, consistent support where it is not, is not just welfare policy – it is health policy.

Ultimately, the bottom line is that is profoundly unfair to future generations to stack the deck against them based on which postcode they happen to be born in. And every day we see the result already being written into the bodies of our patients.

Professor David Strain is chair of the BMA board of science and Dr Heather Grimbaldeston is chair of the BMA public health medicine committee