Saving sick Britain

Book excerpt: Britain is sick and it needs saving. Covid-19 has brought death, disruption and disorder. It has revealed fundamental failures in public policy and our approach to health. For years, the same failures have perpetuated a host of modern plagues - long-running deadly epidemics in diabetes, depression and heart disease. These plagues pose systemic risks to society itself. In this timely book, Yuille and Ollier envisage a society that always puts the health of citizens first: the ‘Health Society’. The time for dithering and tinkering has passed. Prevention of disease is a task for all branches of government – not just the NHS but also for every workplace, employer, community and citizen. The ‘Health Society’ means working in radically new ways to extend our healthy lives and sustainably increase national prosperity. Saving sick Britain follows the science and lays down a challenge to us all: are we ready to make the change required to end these modern plagues? In answering the question the book helps steer the reader towards rethinking what both 'prevention' and ‘health’ mean in modern Britain.