The NHS has announced a new strategy for health care in the UK. It is to move away from its current 'treatment' based approach to a more 'preventative' approach. The new Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, is developing his long-term plans for the NHS and it will focus on the prevention rather than the treatment of illness (5th November 2018).
Well, something certainly has to happen. The NHS is not coping with the demands being made on it by growing number of sick patients who seem to get progressively sick the more treatment they receive, and so requiring more a more treatment. Hancock says that 10 times more money is now being spent on treatment than prevention, and this, he says, "does not stack up". He says that there needs to be a shift in culture of the NHS, and in the way resources are balanced.
Hancock wants people to have 5 more years of healthy, independent life by 2035. To achieve this he is encouraging people to take more responsibility for their own health - to look after themselves better, staying acting longer, quitting smoking, making better life choices by limiting their consumption of alcohol, sugar, salt and fat."
"For too long the NHS has seen itself as essentially the National Hospital Service, with primary care and GPs round the side."
So has the Health Secretary discovered the root cause of NHS failure, or more importantly, the failure of conventional medicine to make us better? My major doubt about his plan is that before illness can be PREVENTED, the CAUSE of illness has first to be correctly identified.
What Hancock seems to be proposing is that patients begin to do the things the NHS has been asking us to do for a very long time! There is nothing new about asking people to change their life style habits for healthier ones. Doctors have been doing it for decades - usually either just before or after handing out a prescription for pharmaceutical drugs. Clearly, there is nothing wrong with a better diet, more exercise, less smoking, et al. But just how exactly is this going to be achieved when it has never been achieved before?
So what about more primary medical care, using GP's rather than hospitals? Certainly it is important to know exactly what Hancock believes to be 'preventative' medicine. For instance, many of the drugs currently prescribed by doctors in massive quantities are already prescribed on the basis that they can prevent illness and disease.
Statin drugs, are perhaps a case in point. They have been, and continue to be prescribed to prevent heart attacks and strokes. So is this the kind of 'preventative medicine' Hancock is talking about? Two things if it is...
Yet herein lies the problem at the very heart of the NHS, which is now completely dominated by the conventional medical establishment, and by the pharmaceutical industry.
It means that the NHS is unable to identify one of the main problems that underlays rising health demand, and rising NHS costs. It refuses to identify one important cause for increased levels of demand that is threatening to bankrupt the NHS. Let me explain why this is.
Well, something certainly has to happen. The NHS is not coping with the demands being made on it by growing number of sick patients who seem to get progressively sick the more treatment they receive, and so requiring more a more treatment. Hancock says that 10 times more money is now being spent on treatment than prevention, and this, he says, "does not stack up". He says that there needs to be a shift in culture of the NHS, and in the way resources are balanced.
Hancock wants people to have 5 more years of healthy, independent life by 2035. To achieve this he is encouraging people to take more responsibility for their own health - to look after themselves better, staying acting longer, quitting smoking, making better life choices by limiting their consumption of alcohol, sugar, salt and fat."
"For too long the NHS has seen itself as essentially the National Hospital Service, with primary care and GPs round the side."
So has the Health Secretary discovered the root cause of NHS failure, or more importantly, the failure of conventional medicine to make us better? My major doubt about his plan is that before illness can be PREVENTED, the CAUSE of illness has first to be correctly identified.
What Hancock seems to be proposing is that patients begin to do the things the NHS has been asking us to do for a very long time! There is nothing new about asking people to change their life style habits for healthier ones. Doctors have been doing it for decades - usually either just before or after handing out a prescription for pharmaceutical drugs. Clearly, there is nothing wrong with a better diet, more exercise, less smoking, et al. But just how exactly is this going to be achieved when it has never been achieved before?
So what about more primary medical care, using GP's rather than hospitals? Certainly it is important to know exactly what Hancock believes to be 'preventative' medicine. For instance, many of the drugs currently prescribed by doctors in massive quantities are already prescribed on the basis that they can prevent illness and disease.
Statin drugs, are perhaps a case in point. They have been, and continue to be prescribed to prevent heart attacks and strokes. So is this the kind of 'preventative medicine' Hancock is talking about? Two things if it is...
- Since Statins have been given to patients there has been no decrease, but rather a massive increase in the number of heart attacks and strokes. Indeed, all chronic disease is now running at epidemic levels.
- And Statins are now known to cause serious health side effects - muscle weakness, cataracts, liver dysfunction, kidney disease, diabetes, dementia et al. So this is one 'preventative' drug that is almost certainly adding to number of cases having to be treated by the NHS.
Vaccines are also widely used by the NHS with the express purpose of 'preventing' disease. Children are subject to a plethora of vaccines for a wide number of (quite minor) illnesses, and although this will be vehemently denied, there is little doubt that they cause (more serious) illness. Swopping measles for autism, or diphtheria for seizures, is not a good deal for patients, or the NHS. Similarly, older people are asked every year to swop influenza for dementia.
So as far as prevention is concerned, vaccines are not a good deal for the NHS either. And before anyone accuses me of being 'anti-vaccine' let me suggest another description for my vaccine stance. I am pro-Hippocrates. FIRST, DO NO HARM!
Yet herein lies the problem at the very heart of the NHS, which is now completely dominated by the conventional medical establishment, and by the pharmaceutical industry.
It means that the NHS is unable to identify one of the main problems that underlays rising health demand, and rising NHS costs. It refuses to identify one important cause for increased levels of demand that is threatening to bankrupt the NHS. Let me explain why this is.
- Doctors prescribe pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines (often to prevent disease).
- These all cause side effects, often very serious side effects, which are, in effect, new and serious illnesses in their own right.
- And because it is conventional medicine that has caused the problem it is unable to admit it. This is one major consequence conventional medicine - it is, itself, creating disease.
So I suspect it is not possible for conventional medicine to do anything about it. I have been writing my DIE's website now for several years, describing how specific pharmaceutical drugs are known to cause specific diseases. One discovery I have made it that when the NHS describes the causes of each illness, the role played by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines are rarely mentioned as a possible cause. Yet medical literature demonstrates that the NHS DOES know that their drugs cause disease. The NHS Choices website, for example, frequently states that the cause of a disease is 'unknown' rather than admit that it can be caused by pharmaceuticals!
The point is that it is difficult to prevent illness if one of the major causes is routinely denied. Put in another way, preventative medicine is only possible if we can identify, openly and honestly, all the factors that cause illness. And conventional medicine refuses to do this.
The point is that it is difficult to prevent illness if one of the major causes is routinely denied. Put in another way, preventative medicine is only possible if we can identify, openly and honestly, all the factors that cause illness. And conventional medicine refuses to do this.
Preventative medicine is a good idea. Homeopathy does it all the time, as do other natural therapies, all of which treat patients without causing harm. Conventional medicine causes a large amount of additional sickness, and by doing so (as I blogged recently), this produces enormous secondary costs for society.
These secondary costs are certainly preventable. But first there has to be an honest admission - that conventional medicine, even when it is claiming to be preventing illness, is actually creating more illness and disease. Then the prevention of large amounts of illness and disease becomes eminently possible - through one simple process.
These secondary costs are certainly preventable. But first there has to be an honest admission - that conventional medicine, even when it is claiming to be preventing illness, is actually creating more illness and disease. Then the prevention of large amounts of illness and disease becomes eminently possible - through one simple process.
STOP USING PHARMACEUTICAL DRUGS AND VACCINES THAT CAUSE ILLNESS!