It’s all Hancock and bull

It’s all very well to say people should spend an afternoon gazing at paintings or doing a ballet class, but those of us with jobs, night shifts, families and no servants would do well to ignore Matt Hancock. The new Health Secretary suggested people get ill because they lack culture, and said “social prescribing” could replace pills. He failed to point out three important things.

1. If you prescribe a play-list to someone with dementia, they’ll still need their medicine to remember where they left the iPod.

2. Saying “we’ve been fostering a culture that’s popping pills and Prozac, when what we should be doing is more prevention and perspiration” implies that everyone with a prescription can be cured if they just shrug themselves out of it. They can’t.

3. And finally, when he says “it’s about moving from patient-centred care to person-centred care” what he means is: “Patients are expensive.”