Take responsibility for your health, says Javid

Public must alter their lifestyles, pleads Health Secretary as NHS budget overtakes GDP of Greece

NEARLY half the NHS budget is spent on diseases that could have been prevented, the Health Secretary has said, as he urged people to take “individual responsibility” for their health.

Sajid Javid said that Britain’s overall health budget is now bigger than the GDP of Greece, warning that the NHS cannot continue spending “vast sums” on lifestyle conditions that are “wholly avoidable”.

He suggested that families do their bit by encouraging loved ones to change their lifestyles by losing weight or quitting smoking. He added that his father quit smoking in his 30s after his mother warned him that their children could grow up without a father.

Writing on The Telegraph’s website, Mr Javid said healthcare reforms will transfer power to individuals, with an expansion in “personal health budgets” enabling those with long-term conditions to choose what care they receive.

But, he said, there was a need for a significant shift to reduce the size of the state, saying “we can’t keep pumping more and more money into healthcare”.

“As a Conservative, I firmly believe in individual responsibility, which is why we need to do so much more on prevention and personalisation. The NHS spends vast sums treating people whose conditions are avoidable and by some estimates 40 per cent of its costs go on treating preventable conditions. Tackling

this is the only way we can reduce the demand on the health service and the state,” he writes today.

In a speech at the Royal College of Physicians yesterday, Mr Javid promised reforms to the NHS, including a “right to choose” a hospital provider, for those facing the longest waits.

Mr Javid added that it was time for health to “embrace the revolutions that have already come to banking and shopping,” saying the NHS app would be central to the changes. “It needs to be easy for doctors and patients to order blood tests as it is to order a burger or a salad on the phone,” he said.

Health officials have said that the NHS app will become the “front door” to health advice, as well as to services, giving people more information and help to improve their habits.

Mr Javid writes: “We know that when healthcare is personalised, built around the person and their family, it works better.

“My dad was a smoker and I remember standing at the top of the staircase overhearing my mum confront him, saying: ‘If you die, your boys won’t have a dad.’ He never smoked again.”

He adds that such interventions had a “powerful” effect.

Later, he says: “I think sometimes we underestimate the huge role your family and your loved ones have on your own health.

“Whether that’s you’re giving up smoking or [improving] your diet, or other health care advice, there is no stronger place [than] that can come from your family.”

Think tanks have indicated that 40 per cent of the burden on health services in England may be avoidable.

Obesity rates have doubled since the 1990s, with two out of three adults now overweight or obese. Lifestyles have also become increasingly sedentary.

An eighth of the NHS drugs budget is spent on treating cases of diabetes, 90 per cent of which are caused by excess weight.