Downing Street’s radical plan for the NHS: shifting it from treatment to prevention

<p>A mountain of evidence has shown health prevention works – but the government as a whole has a role to play</p><p>In Lancaster the community nurse Lizzie Holmes knocks on doors to talk to people who are unwell but reluctant to accept <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/nhs">NHS</a> help. In Blackpool, “community connectors” help low-income families get their children into healthy habits early in life. Both do necessary, vital, proactive work known as health prevention – stopping illness occurring in the first place and spotting it early when it does. The idea is that this will create a virtuous circle of a healthier population and thus less need for NHS care.</p><p>But while the initiatives described in a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jun/29/britain-in-2025-sick-man-of-europe-battling-untreated-illness-crisis">Guardian investigation</a> are imaginative and effective, they are also atypical of the way the NHS works. Over recent decades governments of different political colours have talked about turning the NHS from a service primarily focused on treating illness to one that does far more to prevent disease in the first place. A number of expert reports over those years have urged ministers to make exactly that transformational change. It has never happened.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jun/29/nhs-health-policy-labour-ten-year-plan-change">Continue reading...</a>