Are we being sold poor health?
Aged 75, the NHS is in poor health. Experts say its priorities should include more capacity, more staff, and an end to short-term or wishful thinking.
That would include the Auditor General, with regular warnings to the Scottish government that the current system is unsustainable.It includes expert think tanks. Three of them, based in London and much more attuned to the English NHS, have said as much this week. The former Tory chancellor and health secretary said that senior figures privately admit what they cannot say in public - that the NHS gobbles an ever-larger share of government spending, but still can't meet surging demand.
But health service inflation consistently rises faster than other inflation indices. Expectations rise of what the service can provide and of what medical professionals and science can achieve. The technology and pharmaceutical options build faster than the Treasury can keep up with. One is to invest in the hardware the NHS needs. This would follow years of capital budgets being raided for day-to-day spending. That includes equipment, buildings, new technology and "beds", which is shorthand for capacity.
The think tanks' further demand is for workforce planning and a sustained commitment behind it. The NHS has an enormous problem with vacancies. Technology can also provide more efficiency and more attractive options - monitoring of people and their vital signs while they remain at home. Many chronic ailments are due to choices, to drink excessively, to smoke, to eat too much unhealthy food and not take enough exercise.
Alcohol licensing is already regulated, in the times and places booze can be bought and, in Scotland, at a minimum price per unit. But the challenge remains, and if not down to regulation, then perhaps it's down to personal and collective choice. The series was compiled by academics from 15 countries on six continents, led from the University of Melbourne. It starts with a previous calculation that the four big killer industries - alcohol, tobacco, ultra-processed food and fossil fuels - are responsible for at least a third of global deaths each year.
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