1. One of the founding principles for the NHS in 1948 was that it should improve health and prevent disease. After decades of underfunding, the Government's programme of historic investment and radical reform focused first on putting NHS treatment services on the road to becoming world class. Now is the time for the NHS to move on to become a true health service and not just a sickness service.
2. We need to invest in helping people to stay healthy. The public believe that the NHS should take a lead role in providing information, advice and support to enable everyone to lead healthier lives and prevent illness(i).
Footnote: (i) www.kingsfund.org.uk/pdf/publicattitudesreport.pdf Opinion Leader Research survey
3. This makes good economic sense too. One of the major choices facing society is how we can best use the £67 billion a year we now spend on the NHS, and make the most effective use of that new investment. Derek Wanless, in his two reports, drew out the financial consequences for a society that does not invest in health. If trends in obesity develop unchecked, or smoking rates stop falling, we will have to spend a growing proportion of NHS funds on coping with chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease. The NHS will have to run ever faster to stand still. Derek Wanless made a powerful case for a new for m of alliance between the NHS and society to halt these trends and become 'fully engaged' in promoting health. Action to support good health brings together the interests of individuals, the NHS and taxpaying society.
4. This chapter describes what the NHS will do to deliver on these aims. It describes the next steps to improve health, identify risk and pr event disease, by:
- ensuring that the one and a half million contacts people have with the NHS every day become opportunities for improving and promoting health;
- developing local services designed around the needs of local communities, with a particular focus on those in the most disadvantaged groups and areas; and
- developing the same systematic approaches to health improvement and disease prevention services that are already transforming NHS treatment services.
