Over the past six months insideMAN has been a signatory on two joint letters calling for Government action on issues that impact on the wellbeing of men and boys. Here is the latest on both of these campaigns.

In December last year, we joined dozens of other writers, thinkers, charities and campaigners in a submission to the European Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) strategic plan consultation, calling on the EHRC to recognise areas of disadvantage and discrimination faced by men and boys.

Then in March of this year, insideMAN was one of 40 signatories in a joint letter to the Government’s Chief Medical Officer, Dame Sally Davies, requesting that she follow up her 2014 Annual Report, entitled “Health of the 51%: Women”; with an equivalent report on the health of men.

In terms of the first of the two letters, the initial response by the EHRC was that our submission had in fact somehow not been included in the consultation – we naturally voiced our serious concerns about this.

However, following a series of exchanges, the EHRC’s eventual response here does state that they will be considering a range of the issues that were raised. We will monitor this closely.

Regarding the second letter sent to the Chief Medical Officer, we asked her to consider Men’s Health as the focus for her 2015 Annual Report (each annual report refers to the previous year’s work), and if she shoes not to do so, to provide a full explanation why she will not be matching her 2014 report on women’s health with an equivalent report on men’s health.

In her response to our request, she said she has already chosen her subject for the 2015 report but that she would consider Men’s Health for 2016.

However, she also said there are other subjects she has in mind so there is no guarantee. She also declined to give an explanation on why Men’s Health was not the chosen subject after Women’s Health in 2014. The copy of Dame Sally Davies’ response is here.

We’ll keep you updated with any further developments on both of these campaigns when we hear more.