Posted on 09/04/2007 3:07:07 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Patients who refuse to change their unhealthy lifestyles should not be treated by the NHS, the Conservatives said today.
In a bid to ease spiralling levels of obesity and other health concerns, a Tory panel said certain treatments should be denied to patients who refuse to co-operate with health professionals and live healthier lifestyles.
And those who do manage to improve their general health by losing weight and quitting smoking, for example, would receive "Health Miles" cards.
Points earned could then be used to pay for health-related products such as gym membership and fresh vegetables.
The aim is a shift in the NHS towards preventing disease and ill-health rather than having to treat it.
The proposal was one of a raft of measures suggested in a review of public services, ordered by David Cameron.
The 200-page study, entitled Restoring Pride in Our Public Services, was carried out by the Conservative public services improvement policy group's review co-chaired by former health secretary Stephen Dorrell and leading educationalist Baroness Perry.
"It is inconsistent with the concept of the responsible citizen to imagine that it is realistic for citizens, having paid their taxes, to expect that the state will underwrite the health implications of any lifestyle decision they choose to make," the report states.
Along with the health proposals were a raft of suggested changes in education and housing.
Smaller schools, it has been suggested, would improve overall results.
In cases where pupil numbers are falling large schools in the centre of London and other cities would be closed, rather than smaller schools in outlying areas. Inner city pupils could be transported to schools in the suburbs and even villages to ensure they remain open.
"Schools within schools" could be created to tackle poor discipline, particularly in large schools, national targets could be reduced and struggling pupils could be forced to repeat their final year at primary school.
Former chief inspector of schools Lady Perry said: "Every time we have a cutting back of numbers in schools, the knee-jerk reaction is to close all the little village schools or suburban schools and bus all the pupils into great big city schools.
"Schools are getting bigger and bigger. All the evidence is that discipline, achievement and standards are better in small schools than they are in big ones. So why don't we instead close the great big city school if numbers start to fall and bus the children out to the villages?
"It does not cost any more. It would be so much more productive for the children from the middle of the city to be taken out to the suburbs."
She branded the trend towards large schools a "disaster" - as Education Secretary Ed Balls hailed moves to create more mergers between schools.
He said: "Rather than set schools against schools, we need to increase collaboration."
The Tories' renewed focus on schools came on the same day shock official figures revealed an 83% in school spending only brings a 1% boost in productivity.
A report from the Office for National Statistics showed state schools were more productive during 1996-99, a period when spending was tight.
Where housing is concerned council tenants who are well-behaved could be given as much as £50,000 to help them buy their first home.
The move to rescue poor families from 'dead-end ghettos' in deprived inner cities is a key part of a Tory review of public services.
Families with a five-year record of good behaviour would be given a 10 per cent stake in their property in a significant extension of Margaret Thatcher's hugely popular right-to-buy scheme.
Under the 1980 Housing Act, families received a discount of up to 50 per cent on the market value of their house depending on how long they had lived there.
By 1995, 2.1 million families had taken advantage of the scheme to buy their home.
The payment would be held as an equity bond and could be used only to buy a home.
Council houses are typically worth between £100,000 and £200,000 on the private market - but some tenants in Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea could be sitting on properties worth as much as £500,000.
The report says a Conservative Government has a duty to transform deprived inner cities into neighbourhoods with a 'sense of local pride and ownership'.
But handing money to council tenants would be highly controversial as ordinary council taxpayers would foot the bill.
The move could also provoke resentment from those who do not qualify for social housing - and will not be able to take advantage of the windfall.
But Tory officials said the financial costs would be outweighed by the long-term social benefits of good behaviour by tenants.
The latest proposal is aimed at boosting individuals' pride in their home by letting them own a share of it.
Other health measures outlined include incentives to encourage GPs to "re-engage" in responsibility for the out-of-hours care provided to their patients, without imposing "undesirable working patterns" on doctors.
Tory leader David Cameron will examine the proposals before deciding which ones to make policy.
Crucially on health, the group concluded that far more focus must be placed by the NHS on public health issues.
"We have considered ideas such as an 'NHS Health Miles Card' to promote the concept of wellbeing," says the report.
"Although much work would be required for development, we think that the creation of a small individual benefit scheme would change the language of health from illness to wellbeing."
The group also warns that public support for the NHS is under threat because of the "failure" to engage citizens in the drive to improve the service and to boost productivity despite the billions being poured into it.
Pathetic isn’t this.The people who squealed their approval of smoking bans are now seeing what it will lead to. My local paper had a letter about how the government has the “right to take food out of your throat” by banning trans fats (her words) because “her” tax dollars go to pay for health care of people who eat unhealthy. I seriously have been wondering when there will be a lawsuit about this because there are clearly “favored” unhealthy lifestyles that are exempt from bans. I’d be curious to have someone do a “freakonomics” analysis of the relative health care costs of: 1) Unprotected gay sex 2)teenage pregnancy 3) fat non-smokers 4) people who don’t smoke and eat right, but who have horrible genetic predisposition to disease and compare it to the cost of being a smoker, minus of course the taxes already paid by smokers.
I forgot #5, the REAL health care dollar absorbers, old people. Compare a transfat eating 20 year old smoker and and an 85 year old FDR lovin’ nanny stater and see just how much $ they cost the health care system.
The architech of the sanitary hell world of the movie Demolition Man.
EVERYTHING prohibited, even kissing.
Sounds a lot like Hillary and the rest of the dumbocrats, doesn’t it?
Welcome to Utopia, Comrade.
bttt
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