Photo: Raymond Knapman · CC BY-SA 2.0Life expectancy in Accrington is lower than in 96% of UK towns: 75.1 for men and 78.8 for women
England as a whole stood at 79.1 and 83.0 over 2019 to 2023. Accrington grades D− for health: life expectancy, healthy life expectancy, early deaths, hospital admissions, child obesity and Census health, each adjusted for age.
What stands out about health in Accrington
Patients rate Accrington’s GP practices below England’s
In the 2026 GP Patient Survey, 72% of patients at Accrington’s 4 practices called their overall experience good, against 77% across England, and 51% found it easy to get through by phone (57% in England). That is behind 78% of English towns. GP practices ↓
More of Accrington’s children are obese
25% of Year 6 children (aged 10 to 11) were measured as obese over the last three school years, against 22.3% across England; more than in 86% of UK towns. Health Grade ↓
More patients are seen within four hours than across England, but 12-hour waits for a bed are commoner
East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the A&E at Royal Blackburn Hospital, saw 66% of major-A&E patients within four hours in the 12 months to September 2026, against 61% across England: 27th of 117 trusts. 26% of patients admitted through its A&Es waited more than 12 hours from the decision to admit, against 13% in England. A&E ↓
Written from the OHID, NHS England and GP Patient Survey figures on this page. Life expectancy covers 2019 to 2023; neighbourhoods are ONS middle-layer areas of about 8,000 people.
Accrington grades D− for health
Healthier than 4% of UK towns, on age-adjusted measures.
Behind the typical UK town on every measure. Even its strongest, disability and child obesity, are in the bottom 20% of UK towns; deaths under 75 and emergency admissions are furthest behind.
Each measure is ranked against every UK town of 1,000 or more, the ranks are averaged, and the average is ranked again. Every measure allows for the town’s ages: life expectancy is worked out from the death rate at each age, so it doesn’t depend on how old the town’s residents are; deaths and admissions are counted against what England’s rates would give a town with these ages, and the Census answers against England and Wales’s rates by single year of age, so a seaside town of retired people isn’t marked down for being old.
East Lancashire Hospitals saw 66% of major-A&E patients within four hours
Type 1 (major) A&E attendances seen, admitted or discharged within four hours of arrival, by month. NHS England publishes it by trust, not hospital: East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust runs the A&E at Royal Blackburn Hospital, the nearest to Accrington (4.1 mi).
The share seen within four hours has held near 66% over 18 months. Long waits for a bed are commoner than at 86% of trusts: 12,729 patients in 12 months, 26% of emergency admissions through A&E. CQC’s latest ratings for Royal Blackburn Hospital: urgent and emergency services requires improvement (2019), the hospital overall good (2019).
North West trusts
Hospitals within 25 miles
| Distance | Hospital | CQC overall | Urgent & emergency |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4.1 mi | Royal Blackburn Hospital A&E Blackburn · East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust | Good2019 | Requires improvement2019 |
| 6.9 mi | Burnley General Hospital Burnley · East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust | Good2023 | — |
| 9.2 mi | Clitheroe Community Hospital Clitheroe · East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust | Not rated | — |
| 11 mi | Longridge Hospital Preston · Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust | Not rated | — |
| 11 mi | Fairfield General Hospital A&E Bury · Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust | Not rated | Requires improvement2026 |
| 11 mi | Fairfield General Hospital Bury · Bolton NHS Foundation Trust | Not rated | — |
| 11 mi | Fairfield General Hospital (Cardiac procedures) Bury · Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust | Not rated | — |
| 12 mi | Rochdale Infirmary Rochdale · Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust | Not rated | — |
NHS acute hospitals registered with the Care Quality Commission (care directory, 01 October 2026). “A&E” marks a major (type 1) emergency department, open 24 hours and led by consultants, in NHS England’s Emergency Care Data Set; a hospital without the mark may still have a minor injury unit or urgent treatment centre. Ratings run Outstanding, Good, Requires improvement, Inadequate; the year is when each was published. Distances are straight lines from the town centre.
72% of patients rate Accrington’s 4 GP practices good
GP Patient Survey 2026 (NHS England, run by Ipsos), about 100 patients a practice, against 77% across England. 143rd of 190 English towns of 24,000 to 47,000, from the highest.
| Practice | Overall experience | Easy by phone | Wait about right | CQC |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Peel House Medical Practice BB5 2EJ · 14,373 adult patients | 78% good · range 43%–94% | 50% | 73% | Good2017 |
| Oswald Medical Centre, Accrington BB5 1RP · 12,587 adult patients | 75% good · range 45%–91% | 59% | 67% | Good2023 |
| King Street Medical Centre BB5 1QE · 1,266 adult patients | 66% good · range 64%–67% | 76% | 57% | Good2023 |
| Richmond Medical BB5 1RT · 4,834 adult patients | 51% good · range 41%–60% | 26% | 50% | Good2022 |
Peel House Medical Practice has the town’s highest rating (78%). You can register with any practice whose area covers your address.
GP Patient Survey 2026: surveys sent January to March 2026; results weighted by NHS England. The range is the 95% confidence interval. Adult patients: the survey’s practice population aged 16 and over. A practice counts as in Accrington when its main surgery is inside the built-up area; branch surgeries are part of their main practice. CQC ratings © Care Quality Commission.
Men’s life expectancy across Accrington runs from 72.2 to 79.3
Life expectancy at birth, 2019–23, in Accrington’s 3 middle-layer neighbourhoods (about 8,000 people each). Circles are sized by residents and show men’s life expectancy.
Accrington West has the most deaths under 75 for its ages (191 per 100 expected), against 110 in Accrington South East.
Show every measure as a table
| Neighbourhood | Men | Women | Deaths under 75 | Emergency admissions | Year 6 obese | Income-deprived |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accrington South East | 79.3 | 81.5 | 110 | 113 | 18% | 27% |
| Accrington North East | 75.3 | 79.2 | 154 | 124 | 25% | 35% |
| Accrington West | 72.2 | 76.7 | 191 | 172 | 29% | 55% |
Deaths and admissions per 100 expected for each area’s ages (England = 100). Each figure has a range: Accrington West’s men’s life expectancy is 72.2 with a 95% range of 70.7 to 73.7. Neighbourhoods are ONS middle-layer areas at least 30% inside Accrington; names are the House of Commons Library’s.
Men’s life expectancy in Accrington is about what its level of deprivation predicts
Across 1,996 English towns of 2,500 or more, men’s life expectancy tracks income deprivation closely (correlation −0.81). Each dot is a town.
41% of Accrington’s residents are income-deprived, more than in most English towns. For that level, the line predicts 75.0 years for men; Accrington’s is 75.1. For women it predicts 79.6, and Accrington’s 78.8 is 0.8 years below.
Income deprivation: share of residents in low-income households, English Indices of Deprivation 2025, averaged over each town’s neighbourhoods. A town above or below the line isn’t necessarily doing better or worse on care: students, prisons and hostels inside a boundary all shift the figures.
Care in and near Accrington
The nearest A&E, the practice patients rate highest, and where to go when it’s urgent but not an emergency. In an emergency, call 999.
83% of adults in the Lancashire and South Cumbria area who tried got an NHS dental appointment
Adults who tried to get an NHS dental appointment for themselves in the last two years, and got one. GP Patient Survey 2026, by integrated care system (the NHS area that plans dentistry for Accrington).
Across England 82% of those who tried got an appointment. Of Lancashire and South Cumbria patients who did, 75% rated the experience good (England 74%). NHS practices taking new patients are listed on the NHS website’s Find a dentist; for urgent dental pain, call NHS 111.
The survey asks GP patients about dentistry, so results are published for health areas, not towns or practices.
78% of residents say their health is good or very good
Census 2021, all residents, as answered (not adjusted for age).
Accrington’s residents are younger than Lancashire’s (15% are 65 or over, against 20%), which accounts for much of the difference. Adjusted for age, 152 report bad health for every 100 expected, more than the national rate.
Show as a table
| Census 2021 | Accrington | Lancashire | England |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 78% | 80% | 82% |
| Fair health | 15% | 14% | 13% |
| Bad or very bad health | 7.1% | 6.3% | 5.2% |
| Disabled under the Equality Act | 20% | 20% | 17% |
| Day-to-day activities limited a lot | 9.6% | 9.1% | 7.4% |
Lancashire and England: all residents of their built-up areas (towns and cities), from the same Census 2021 output areas.
How Accrington compares with UK towns of 24,000 to 47,000
Ordered by Health Grade: the top three, the towns either side of Accrington, and others in Lancashire. Life expectancy for men / women; deaths under 75 per 100 expected.
| # | Town | People | Life expectancy | Deaths under 75 | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Harpenden Hertfordshire | 30,964 | 83.0 / 86.8 | 58 | A+ |
| 2 | Fleet Hampshire | 37,800 | 83.3 / 85.7 | 58 | A+ |
| 3 | Ascot Berkshire | 24,003 | 83.1 / 84.6 | 63 | A+ |
| … | |||||
| 71 | Lytham St Anne's Lancashire | 42,693 | 79.3 / 83.8 | 94 | C+ |
| … | |||||
| 81 | Ormskirk Lancashire | 27,720 | 79.8 / 82.7 | 98 | C+ |
| … | |||||
| 113 | Bamber Bridge Lancashire | 40,359 | 79.3 / 82.0 | 106 | C |
| … | |||||
| 205 | Llanelli Dyfed | 42,143 | — | — | D− |
| 206 | Ashington Northumberland | 28,279 | 76.1 / 80.0 | 136 | D− |
| 207 | Accrington Lancashire | 34,897 | 75.1 / 78.8 | 157 | D− |
| 208 | Merthyr Tydfil Mid Glamorgan | 39,542 | — | — | D− |
| 209 | Bilston West Midlands | 34,631 | 75.1 / 79.9 | 150 | D− |
| … | |||||
| 227 | Clydebank West Dunbartonshire | 26,220 | 72.3 / 78.5 | — | D− |
Health letters rank against every UK town of 1,000 or more; the order here is context only. Welsh towns are graded on life expectancy, healthy life expectancy and the two Census measures: OHID’s early-death, admissions and child-obesity figures cover England.
Health in the places around Accrington
Life expectancy for men / women, and the nearest A&E. Tap a town for its health page.
| Town | People | Life expectancy | Nearest A&E | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accrington | 34,897 | 75.1 / 78.8 | 4.1 mi | D− |
| Church | 5,030 | — | 3.6 mi | D |
| Oswaldtwistle | 10,810 | 75.5 / 80.7 | 2.6 mi | D |
| Huncoat | 1,258 | 77.1 / 79.5 | 5.4 mi | C− |
| Clayton-le-Moors | 7,969 | 77.1 / 79.5 | 4.3 mi | D |
| Rishton | 6,653 | 77.7 / 82.1 | 2.9 mi | D |
| Great Harwood | 11,022 | 76.5 / 82.2 | 4.2 mi | C− |
| Hapton | 2,240 | 80.3 / 82.6 | 6.8 mi | C+ |
Hapton, 2.9 miles away, has men’s life expectancy of 80.3, 5.2 years longer than Accrington’s.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- A&E figures are for the trust. NHS England publishes four-hour waits by trust, not hospital, so East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust’s figures cover every major A&E it runs. They count type 1 (major) departments; minor injury units and urgent treatment centres are left out, which is why they sit below the all-types figure NHS England headlines (75% for England).
- The GP survey is a survey. About 100 patients answer for each practice, so a practice’s figure has a range (shown in the table); small differences between practices aren’t meaningful. The town figure weights each practice by its adult patients, some of whom live outside Accrington.
- Adjusted for age. A ratio of 100 means as many deaths, admissions or reports of bad health as England’s rates (England and Wales’s for the Census) would give a town with these ages; 120 means a fifth more.
- Small areas, summed to the town. OHID publishes these figures for middle-layer areas of about 8,000 people; the town’s figure averages the areas it covers, weighted by how many of their residents live in it, so a village shares its area’s figure with the countryside around it.
- Different years. Life expectancy and deaths cover 2019 to 2023; emergency admissions 2016/17 to 2020/21 (the latest OHID publishes for small areas, including the pandemic dip); child obesity the three school years to 2024/25; A&E the 12 months to September 2026; the GP Patient Survey early 2026; CQC ratings were published on different dates, shown in each row.
- Distances are straight lines. Miles are measured from the town’s centre to each site; the road is longer. For an emergency, call 999; for urgent advice, call NHS 111.
Questions about health in Accrington
How healthy is Accrington?
Accrington earns a D− for health, healthier than 4% of UK towns on measures adjusted for age. Life expectancy is 75.1 for men and 78.8 for women (England 79.1 and 83.0), and there are 157 deaths under 75 for every 100 expected.
How long are A&E waits at Royal Blackburn Hospital?
NHS England publishes waits for the trust, East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust. In the 12 months to September 2026 it saw 66% of major-A&E patients within four hours, against 61% across England; in September 2026 the figure was 63%. In an emergency call 999; for urgent advice call NHS 111.
Can I get an NHS dentist in Accrington?
In the 2026 GP Patient Survey, 83% of adults in the Lancashire and South Cumbria area who tried to get an NHS dental appointment in the last two years got one, against 82% across England. Practices taking new NHS patients are listed on the NHS website’s Find a dentist service.
Which GP practice in Accrington do patients rate highest?
In the 2026 GP Patient Survey, Peel House Medical Practice (78% good overall), Oswald Medical Centre, Accrington (75% good overall) and King Street Medical Centre (66% good overall). Across all 4 Accrington practices, 72% of patients rate their practice good, against 77% in England.
What is the life expectancy in Accrington?
75.1 years for men and 78.8 for women, on OHID’s figures for 2019 to 2023. Men can expect 58.1 of those years and women 58.9 in good health.
CQC ratings © Care Quality Commission.
Sources: OHID Fingertips small-area indicators (life expectancy and deaths 2019–23, emergency admissions 2016/17–2020/21, NCMP 2022/23–2024/25); House of Commons Library MSOA names · ONS health state life expectancy for small areas (MSOAs), England and Wales, 2019 to 2023 (healthy life expectancy) · ONS Census 2021 general health and disability, adjusted for age · Care Quality Commission care directory and latest ratings, 01 October 2026 · NHS Organisation Data Service · GP Patient Survey 2026 (NHS England, run by Ipsos) · NHS England, A&E Attendances and Emergency Admissions (monthly, by trust) and Emergency Care Data Set activity by site, June–September 2026 (type 1 A&Es) · MHCLG English Indices of Deprivation 2025 · TownRatings grades: our own summary of the data, ranked against UK towns only. All under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.