'From sickness to prevention' panel – 'Re:Imagining Health' conference
Researcher
‘From sickness to prevention’ is one of the Government’s three promised shifts to create an NHS fit for the future. Yet despite decades of consensus, achieving this systemic shift ‘upstream’ – from a system which treats sickness, to a preventative one – remains elusive.
With the much-awaited 10 Year Health Plan imminent, this panel at our flagship ‘Re:Imagining Health’ conference offered a timely deep dive into what it will take to finally deliver prevention at scale.
We were thrilled to be joined by:
- Dr Jeanette Dickson, Chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges;
- Professor Kevin Fenton, London Regional Director of Public Health, and President of the UK Faculty of Public Health;
- Kevin McKenna MP, Officer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Health, and Registered Nurse; and
- Khalil Asmar, Vice President of Cardiometabolic Health at Lilly UK.
Below are my three key takeaways from this rich and thought-provoking discussion:
- Overcoming the implementation gap
There has long been consensus that prevention isn’t just good policy, it’s the most effective lever available to improve health outcomes and reduce long-term costs. Yet there is a disconnect between this and the system’s failure to deliver prevention at scale.
Panellists identified the key components of this implementation gap as: pervasive fragmentation across the health and care ecosystem; unclear responsibilities and accountabilities; and misaligned resources.
But the UK does have some significant public health successes under its belt, from leading globally at reducing new HIV infections to fantastic achievements in smoking cessation. The implementation gap arises in achieving prevention at scale, rather than disease to disease, and achieving a systemic upstream shift in the health system.
- Partnership working
The panellists all emphasised the importance of partnership working – across the NHS, local government, education, the voluntary community faith and social enterprise sector, and private sector – to deliver prevention at scale. At the moment, this sort of partnership working is the exception, not the norm, and this needs to change.
The current local government reorganisation, occurring at the same time as structural changes to the NHS, creates a unique chance to align these structures, to make partnership working far easier. Panellists stressed the need to capitalise on this opportunity.
- The need to shift mindsets
Prevention is not just about policy, organisational structures and funding, it also requires changing how people think and operate. This is true for both citizens and professionals.
How health and care professionals work needs to change to reflect the importance of prevention, beyond just in primary care. Medical training and education should embrace and prioritise prevention. And incentives in the system must align with valuing prevention, in outcome measures and funding flows.
Simultaneously, individuals need to see health as something they are part of creating for themselves, rather than as a product they receive from interactions with health professionals. There is a growing awareness, especially in younger generations, of limited resources and the need to create a sustainable health system – this is an opportunity for such a mindset shift.
The upcoming 10 Year Plan – with its focus on prevention – creates momentum which should be capitalised on to galvanise people around the prevention agenda, Professor Fenton highlighted. This opportunity, to embed prevention into our health system and finally achieve this systemic transformation, must be seized.
Thank you to Lilly UK for kindly supporting this panel and to Salesforce for hosting the ‘Re:Imagining Health’ conference in Salesforce Tower.