Have your say: improving the health of the nation

I'm currently much in favour of the Community Asset Transfer approach. Give the various communities of residence, themes and interest, the: assets; autonomy; resources; powers; and support, with which they could take on the identification and implementation of fundamental solutions. The 'communities' themselves are often the most informed 'experts' in; what the problems are; where they originate; and what makes them inter-generational and mutually-reinforcing. The whole The health 'professionals' and other producer interests, along with politicians, have been given immense public funding resources for a very long time - and we have arrived at being a society with some of the most acute and unjustified health inequalities among advanced economies. I helped deliver and facilitate a conference on the theme in Glasgow for the RSA Scotland several months ago. The clear consensus was that the various communities were 'up for' the Community Asset Transfer approach - but the barriers lay with many of the health professionals (with honourable exceptions such as Sir Harry Burns), official agencies such as Community Planning Partnerships in Scotland and - above all - politicians at national and local levels. One essential factor in radical and fundamental change will be autonomy for the individual as well as the community in which the individuals resides and/or woks and/or is a service user.

Mid Staffs Health Trust

assumption seems to be that nurses are not properly trained

why is it that doctors and consultants do not appear to be accountable:they should know what's going on

The NHS has been very poor at investing in preventive health care throughout its existence and also very slow and unadventurous when it comes to utilizing new media to optimize public health campaigns. I think the public is very willing to engage with public health campaigns and very open to receiving messages about appropriate health care accessing behaviour. There is much unexplored territory with social networking sites as well as waging major campaigns on mainstream media.

I'm amazed at the blatant advertising and promotion we allow in this country for pseudo food - Ie. stuff we can eat or drink, but is of dubious nutritional value. For example:
• In WH Smith and Marks and Spencers, assistants are apparently forced by managers and company policy to suggest customers purchase a discounted (and quite large) chocolate bar with their paper, stationary, or other unrelated to chocolate purchase.
• On East Coast (and no doubt other rail lines) it is suggested, at 10/11am in the morning, to buy a beer or two to “relax from your stressful journey.” Regular announcements that beer is on buy-one-get-one-free are totally inappropriate at such a time and environment. When you go to the buffet car, there is no proper nutritional food visibly on sale, just lots of pseudo food, i.e. crisps, processed junk and alchohol. You have to ask for the real food and there isn’t much of it.
• In supermarkets, fizzy drinks, chocolate and other pseudo-foods are typically near the entrance, heavily promoted, colourfully displayed, and take up way more shelf space than food items.
• In some areas of towns and cities, there are no food shops, just psuedo-food shops, like fried chicken outlets and fast food.
These are just a few examples, but they all promote a strong nudge in the direction of “go on, have a bar of chocolate, have a drink, buy some crap to eat to make yourself feel better.” I have noticed this attitude and belief set towards food becoming increasingly prevalent in recent years.
Recent research has shown that fat people don’t want to be fat, but you only have to wander round a supermarket looking into trolleys to see that fat people typically succumb to the non-food options and the underlying belief that its OK, which is reinforced by the dominant culture around them.
As there are very low margins on fresh meat, fish and vegetables that have not been processed, it is easy to see why the food industry would like us to buy their higher margin processed stuff – but it has got out of hand. The recent horsemeat scandal suggests that the traceability and quality of this non-food and processed food is extremely suspect.
The food industry has reached the point that the tobacco industry did before people realised the full health impact of smoking, and the impact of it being subliminally promoted as sexy, cool and relaxing.
While diet and links with obesity and cardio vascular disease has been identified as a signicant public health issue, the food industry needs to be dramatically constrained so that it starts selling food again, and is, like tobacco, heavily taxed on items that are fundamentally bad for people.