Does the UK need a new minister for population health?

“We know what works,” concludes a report into improving the UK’s national health over the next decade, citing support for smokers to improve quit rates, taxes and calorie reduction targets to cut obesity levels, and minimum unit pricing and marketing restrictions to reduce harmful drinking, alongside a host of other evidence based initiatives. And yet, it concedes, “There are political challenges to improving population health, with powerful vested interests, and damaging preconceptions by the public and politicians.”How then do we shift this political discourse? By changing the wiring at the centre of government. At least, that is the case made in the report, A Covenant for Health,1 put together by Geoffrey Filkin, a member of the House of Lords, alongside health policy experts and others from across the political spectrum.“We know how the Department of Health and Social Care behaves, and it’s not going to suddenly or quickly change,” Filkin…
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