On 26 July, the UK’s prime minister, Tony Blair, gave a major speech on public health, in which he admitted that his attitude to issues traditionally seen as being in the area of personal responsibility, such as the smoking ban, has changed in the last few years, particularly where children are involved. An important role of government should be to empower people to choose responsibly to enable them to ‘lead the healthy lives they want’.
‘In the future, health care cannot be just about treating the sick but must be about helping us to live healthily; this requires more from all of us, individuals, companies and Government and for Government it has to encourage, it has to inform, but, if necessary, in a tougher way than ever before, it has to be prepared to act.’
For example, Mr Blair stated that if the voluntary code on limiting advertising of ‘junk food’ to children has not worked by 2007, the government will make it ‘mandatory'.
The speech focused in particular on lifestyle change, and on engagement and partnerships between business, individuals, media and government, drawing a parallel between obesity and tobacco control, in which a ‘guiding coalition’ was formed of different groups.
There was a consultation process in the run-up to the speech. Christine Hancock, of OxHA and former president of the ICN, was invited to take part in a seminar on public health. She was commissioned to write an expert paper, which is posted on the Number 10 website (the website of the prime minister), and on the OxHA website (links below). The alliance approach advocated in the paper, and the focus on the risk factors of diet, exercise and smoking, were key themes in the speech.
In his conclusion, Blair noted that his ambition is for the health system in 10 years' time to be ‘about prevention as much as cure, about personal responsibility as much as collective responsibility, about the quality of living as much as life expectancy’.
- For the OxHA expert paper on the Number 10 website, click here >>
- For the OxHA expert paper as a pdf, click here >>
- For a transcript of the speech, click here >>
Source: Number 10 website