How can we help our fathers live longer?

How can we help our fathers live longer?Image source, MARTIN GILES/BBCImage caption, Shane Newton is living with prostate cancer, which has spread to his bones after being diagnosed at a late stage. ByNikki FoxEast of England health correspondentPublished21 June 2026When 56-year-old Shane Newton, a father from Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, finally decided to visit his GP, it was too late.The cancer, which was in his prostate, had already spread to his bones - something doctors say is much harder to treat and is now incurable.Prostate cancer is relatively straightforward to manage if caught early, and he says, looking back, he "wished" he'd seen a doctor "seven or eight months before".He put his tiredness down to working long hours in a factory and did not think it was necessary to go to the GP."I kept putting it off, and just left it too long, I realise that now," he says."It's just a man thing.. You just don't like to admit you're not feeling good, you just sort of get on with life, you have aches and pains..."Because of work, I did 12-hour shifts, and so I didn't really get much spare time... so I just slept and went back to work the next morning."By the time he sought help, the PSA test - used by GPs to flag prostate cancer - was dangerously high."They said anything over 4 for my age is a red flag; mine was 78."Image source, MARTIN GILES/BBCImage caption, Newton (far right) attends a men's cancer support group but says he doesn't want to know his prognosis as he wants to stay positiveNewton's story reflects a wider picture. Men are less likely to visit the GP than women. In Cambridgeshire, around 40% of those attending health checks in surgeries are men, compared with 60% women.In England, one in five men, external will die before the age of 65, compared with roughly one in eight women. Women also live, on average, almost four years longer than men.Cancer accounts for t...