NHS chief calls for radical action
to head off crisis in public health

Simon Stevens pointed to the fact that nearly one in five secondary school aged child is obese, as are a quarter of adults – up from just 15 per cent 20 years ago.

Unchecked, the result will inevitably be a huge rise in avoidable illness and disability, including many cases of type 2 diabetes, already said to cost the NHS around £9bn a year.

Speaking at the annual conference of Public Health England in Coventry, said: “Obesity is the new smoking, and it represents a slow-motion car crash in terms of avoidable illness and rising healthcare costs.

“If as a nation we keep piling on the pounds around the waistline, we’ll be piling on the pounds in terms of future taxes needed just to keep the NHS afloat.”

In an NHS “Five Year Forward View” to be published next month, it will set out actions to make a difference over the course of the next Parliament.

Proposals being debated include a shift in NHS investment towards targeted and proven prevention programmes, new incentives to ensure the NHS as an employer sets a national example, and recommending that financial incentives should be offered to employers who provide effective workplace health programmes.

Another plan is to empower local councils and elected mayors to make local decisions on fast food, alcohol, tobacco and other public health-related policy decisions, going further and faster than national statutory frameworks where there is local democratic support for doing so.

Professor Jonathan Valabhji, national clinical director for obesity and diabetes, said: “Obesity is a significant and wide scale public health issue for all age groups and an issue the NHS as a whole is dedicated to tackling.”