Ending the blame game: The case for a new approach to public health and prevention

Article

Too many people in the UK are suffering from preventable ill-health with progress on prevention stalling in recent years.

Over half of the disease burden in England is deemed preventable, with one in five deaths attributed to causes that could have been avoided. The UK has made significant progress on this agenda in the past but we appear to have ‘hit a wall’ with limited progress since 2010.

Action on prevention will not only improve health but also lead to increases in economic growth, make the NHS more sustainable and help to deliver social justice. The government’s prevention green paper must deliver a paradigm shift in policy from interventions that ‘blame and punish’ to those that ‘empathise and assist’.

Related items

  1. A view from above a wind turbine with two engineers standing on top of it

    Partner to scale: How international collaboration can enable the green transition

    Scaling clean industrial technologies requires a shift from fragmented national strategies to targeted, durable international cooperation.
  2. Three EU flags outside a large glass and steel building in Brussels, Belgium

    The Europe agenda: Trade and integration

    This briefing note explores the options for the UK to deepen the trading relationship and sets out a proposed path forward.

  3. Brexit 10 years on: Time the North took back control through devolution

    Why does 'take back control' not extend to devolution?