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Government to review ‘future’ of NHS Health Checks, White Paper reveals

Government to review ‘future’ of NHS Health Checks, White Paper reveals

The Government’s ‘levelling up’ White Paper has revealed that it will review the ‘future’ of the NHS Health Check scheme.

The plans, trailed yesterday morning, also include further details of a pilot asking GPs to prescribe exercise and healthy food.

The new White Paper aims to ‘level up’ under-resourced parts of the UK, with 12 national missions to be achieved by 2030 and given status in law representing the ‘Government’s agenda for the 2020s’.

It said: ‘Further to the publication of Preventing illness and improving health for all: a review of the NHS Health Check programme and recommendations, the UK Government is considering the future of the NHS Health Check Programme to help strengthen our prevention offer.’

The review, published in December, recommended a ‘move from a one-off check to a two-way, longitudinal engagement with people, who should not be passive recipients of care, but actively involved in their own wellness maintenance’.

It also recommended reducing the age at which health checks are offered to 30-39, for the programme to move to a digital model and for it to ‘address more conditions’.

The White Paper also revealed that the GP ‘Community Eatwell’ pilot will be three years long and will build on existing models such as in Washington DC, where doctors prescribe ‘vouchers for fresh fruit and vegetables along with cooking lessons and nutritional education’.

It added: ‘Where Community Eatwell is piloted, GPs will be able to prescribe fruit and vegetables, as well as food-related education and social support to those suffering, or at risk of, diet-related illness or food insecurity.’

It follows a Government-commissioned review in July that recommended GPs should prescribe fruit and vegetables to people who have poor access to healthy food.

Another forthcoming White Paper setting out the Government’s ‘food strategy’ will take forward the recommendations.

The ‘levelling up’ White Paper published yesterday also set out:

  • Plans to improve participation in screening programmes by ‘under-served’ groups
  • A pilot in Wolverhampton will this year incentivise and reward participants – who will be given wrist-worn devices and access to an app – for improving their physical activity and diet, focusing on ‘underserved groups and those who are not already meeting guidelines to support them to live healthier lives’
  • Another White Paper on Health Disparities to be published ‘shortly’ will focus on ‘prevention and disparities by ethnicity, socioeconomic background and geography’
  • NHS England has commissioned an evaluation of social prescribing
  • The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) will increase National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) investment outside London, Oxford and Cambridge
  • New hospital projects will include Dorset services integrating GP and community service in a new hospital
  • ‘At least’ 100 community diagnostic centres are to be set up in England by 2025

It comes as GP practices were last week asked to ‘restore routine services’ following an ‘incredible’ Covid booster drive, including prioritising annual health checks for vulnerable patients.

And GPs were last month asked to carry out as many health checks of patients with severe mental illness as is feasible, including during vaccination appointments.

The NHS Health Check programme, which targets everyone over 40, was paused in some areas during the pandemic, with promises of income protection for GP practices.


          

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READERS' COMMENTS [3]

Please note, only GPs are permitted to add comments to articles

David jenkins 3 February, 2022 2:10 pm

“a two-way, longitudinal engagement with people”

what sort of drivel is this ?

Patrufini Duffy 3 February, 2022 2:20 pm

The UK is superb at complicating a simple task. Like it needs Professors, more PhDs and 784 bullet points and a template so mind numbingly boring, that you lose the will to do the check in the first place.

David Mummery 3 February, 2022 4:41 pm

David Jenkins you made me laugh out loud and nearly a spilled a cup of tea 😂