Should the NHS prioritise prevention over cure?

People will be encouraged to take greater responsibility for managing their own health, under new plans that will see NHS strategy focus more on prevention.

Setting out his long-term vision for the health service, Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock said more effort and resources would now go towards preventing illness occuring in the first place.

“For too long the NHS has seen itself as essentially the National Hospital Service, with primary care and GPs round the side,” he told BBC Radio 4. “I want to see it as the health service of the nation, helping people to stay healthier”.

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The UK currently spends £97 billion of public money on treating disease and only £8 billion preventing it, something Hancock says just “doesn’t stack up”.

“Any strategy to reduce pressure on the NHS is welcome but will only succeed if it tackles health inequalities as an integral part of prevention and public health” says Dr Andrew Goddard, president of the Royal College of Physicians.

That is why under the “Prevention is better than cure” plan, people in England are being told to cut back on alcohol, sugar, salt and fat in a bid to boost the nation's life expectancy by five years.

The strategy will prioritise preventive measures delivered through primary and community care and follows on from Theresa May's mission announced earlier this year to ensure people can enjoy at least five extra healthy years of life by 2035.

The plan also includes targets to halve childhood obesity by 2030, reduce loneliness, diagnose 75% of stage one and two cancers by 2028 and using technology to predict patients' illnesses and target advice at sections of the population.

The health secretary has refused to be drawn on how much of the extra £20 billion earmarked for the NHS would be spent on preventative measures.

This has prompted Helen Donovan, from the Royal College of Nursing, to warn promises needed to be backed up with serious investments at a local level, while Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth says while the plans were “laudable”, “unless ministers reverse these cuts and start fully funding public health services, these announcements will be dismissed as a litany of hollow promises”.