Maintaining good health: Prevention is better than cure

The Health Secretary will today outline his vision to put prevention at the heart of the government's long term plan for the NHS, helping to bring healthcare into the modern era and focusing on promoting the health of the whole individual.

Key facts:

Building on the Government’s work in areas such as childhood obesity and social prescribing, the Health Secretary will set out how:

• The Government is committing to publishing the first ever Green Paper on prevention next year, with a focus on prevention through primary and community care services. 
• Britain currently spends £97 billion of public money on treating disease and only £8 billion preventing it across the UK. 
• Illness among people of working-age costs the economy more than £100 billion a year. 
• Poor health in England affects not just physical and mental health, but also impacts on social interaction, crime, communities and jobs. 

Why this matters:

Focusing on prevention and predictive medicine isn’t just the difference between life and death, it’s the difference between spending the last 20 years of your life fit and active, or in constant pain from a chronic condition.

The government's proposed balanced approach means we can provide the single, largest cash injection to the NHS ever, but only with a renewed focus on prevention not cure can our NHS be sustainable in the long term.