Why it matters
The NHS can become a service that keeps people healthy, as well as treating them when they are ill. Policy is already moving towards prevention and care closer to home, but education and training have yet to follow.
The change we want
From overwhelmed to sustainable
At its inception, the NHS proved visionary. It provided high quality health care for all, servicing the needs of the population. It offered universal access to timely, acute, episodic treatment.
Health care delivery initially designed to meet the challenges of a post-war society is now unable to adapt fast enough to meet the burdens of 21st century health care.
From responding to crises to preventing them
Demand for care is outgrowing what the NHS can give. The manifesto calls this a polycrisis: several crises happening at once, each making the others harder to solve.
The health system was designed to respond to crises, not to prevent illness or to create health.
From sick care to health care
Sick care treats symptoms as they arrive, and reduces a person to their biology.
Take a patient with chest pain from coronary artery disease. They are given a calcium channel blocker and glyceryl trinitrate (GTN), and the pain eases. No one asks about their fear, their family's frustration, conflict at work or money worries, and each can bring the pain back until they need urgent care again.
Health care that values prevention works across the biological, psychological and social, and offers evidence-based psychosocial support alongside the medicines a person needs.
Key figures
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More people will live with major illness
Almost 1 in 5people aged 20 and over in England are expected to be living with a major illness by 2040, up from almost 1 in 6 in 2019.
2019 almost 1 in 6
2040 almost 1 in 5
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Illness comes earlier in deprived areas
10 yearsis how much earlier people in England's most deprived areas can expect major illness than people in the least deprived.
The gap 10 years
The detail
People in the most deprived tenth of areas can expect major illness 10 years earlier than those in the least deprived tenth.
80% of the expected rise in major illness among people aged 20 to 69 in England by 2040 falls in the more deprived half of areas.
More deprived half 8 in 10
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Prescriptions per person doubled in 20 years
DoubledPrescription items per person in England went from 10 in 1996 to 20 in 2016.
1996 10 items
2016 20 items
The detail
These are items dispensed in primary care and the community.
What we are doing about it
We are working to change how health care professionals are educated, so that keeping people well stands beside treating illness. Our home page sets out our purpose, aims, focus and actions.
