‘Sickness prevention will save lives and money’ - Dr Brink
Focusing on preventing sickness will save lives and money, the director of Public Health, Dr Nicola Brink has said.
In the latest Medical Officer of Health Report, which covers 2023 and 2024, she highlighted the challenges the Bailiwick is facing for the next 20 years, unless changes are made.
‘We cannot continue to focus on acute care at the expense of prevention,’ she said.
‘We need to shift the focus where prevention of disease and ill-health is given equal consideration to the management of acute conditions. If we don’t, our health and care services will become overwhelmed in the next 20 years.
'Impossibly difficult choices will need to be made – for example healthcare services may need to be rationed.
‘We have to change the narrative from ill-health being a burden to good health being an economic enabler.
‘Quite simply, a healthy population is a productive population.
‘If we don’t, we will face a crisis within the next 20 years. The hospital that we are building now will not cope.’
Data from the UK has estimated that investing in prevention can be three to four times more cost-effective than investing in treatment, with an extra year of good health costing an estimated £3,800 through prevention of poor health, compared to £13,500 via treatment.
Public health has set itself six goals, including halving the smoking rate to less than 5%, and reducing childhood obesity by a third.
Dr Brink said Public Health had already proved how successful this approach could be through other preventative programmes it had implemented.
‘For example, our free contraception for under-21s. We now have the lowest teenage pregnancy rates in the British Isles, and there is also our free cervical screening programme, where we’re moving towards eliminating this as a public health risk.’
The report projects disease numbers up to 2043 and showed that at current projections, 10 of 11 modelled chronic diseases would experience an increase in cases by 2043.
The largest percentage increase would be for dementia, where there could be a 61% increase in cases.
Dr Brink said that although the risk of dementia increased with age there was still much that could be done with intervention.
‘Risk factors for the development of dementia included alcohol use, high blood pressure and obesity, all factors we can influence.
‘If you look at chronic disease and the impact on our health and care services, if we slow the rate that people develop chronic conditions, we can reduce the impact on the health and care service, but most importantly, we can improve the health and wellbeing of islanders.’
