Doctors to prescribe daily vitamin D pills

DOCTORS want everyone to be forced to take vitamin D pills in winter – to help save the NHS.

GPs believe the “sunshine” chemical would help people fight colds and flu through the winter months and ease pressure on stretched health services.

Although the body naturally creates vitamin D when exposed to sunlight, many people do not make enough of it during the darkest months of the year.

Better

It is among a string of proposals medics say could save the NHS billions of pounds a year. Doctors are also demanding 50 tests, procedures and treatments be scrapped.

They say patients with back pain should no longer routinely have an X-ray, and older people should not be given antibiotics at the end of their lives.

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, which represents 220,000 working doctors, also says doing nothing for a patient might sometimes be better for their health.

And it argues tests and treatments, which have been routine for decades, should either be stopped or used less often because they have little or no value.

Prof Dame Sue Bailey, from the Academy said: “We have long had a tendency to over-medicalise in this country and it’s a problem that really needs addressing.

“Too often there’s pressure on both the patient and the doctor to do something, when doing nothing might often be the best course of action.”

X-rays should be used much more sparingly because they often reveal little useful information, the academy believes.

Steve Tolan, of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, said: “This is excellent advice many patients may be surprised by, but is very much in their best interests.”