Public Health

Tackling preventable death factors could save 30,000 lives

Improvements in dealing with the main five causes of premature mortality could save 30,000 lives by 2020 and make life expectancy in England among the best in Europe, health secretary Jeremy Hunt has announced.

The call comes after the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010, published in the Lancet yesterday, demonstrated that levels of ill-health in the UK have not improved in line with other countries, leaving the UK below average on several important indicators compared with 18 other countries.

While life expectancy has increased over the past 20 years, there have been some increases in specific diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, cirrhosis of the liver and drug use disorders. 

More than 150,000 people under-75 die from cancer, heart, stroke, respiratory and liver disease each year. Hunt wants us to reduce these avoidable deaths by taking action on tobacco, unhealthy diet and alcohol, placing greater emphasis on prevention, early diagnosis and treatment and more coordination across the health system, through the new Living Well for Longer strategy.

The DH has published a cardiovascular disease (CVD) outcomes strategy which recommends improving prevention, diagnosis and treatment, managing CVD as a single family of disease and developing a standardised template for community and hospital care.

Hunt said: “Despite real progress in cutting deaths we remain a poor relative to our global cousins on many measures of health, something I want to change. For too long we have been lagging behind and I want the reformed health system to take up this challenge and turn this shocking underperformance around.”

Professor Kevin Fenton, director of health and wellbeing at Public Health England, said the report was a “wake-up call” for the UK and warned the pace of improvement “is not enough”.

The Lancet study identifies areas for improvement, Prof Fenton said and called for the NHS to focus more on primary prevention and wellbeing to boost public health.

“We need to apply and scale-up what we know works. And we need the will to make this happen.”

But President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), Dr Hilary Cass, said it was “disappointing” that little reference was made to childhood mortality in the ‘Living Well for Longer’ strategy.

“At a time where each year, 1,600 children are dying unnecessarily in the UK, any call to action on reducing avoidable mortality must consider this more explicitly.”

Dr Peter Carter, chief executive & general secretary of the RCN hoped that the call to action would “help spark improvements” and stated his support for health professionals to make every contact with patients count.

Prof John Newton, chief knowledge officer at Public Health England, said: “These relatively poor results for mortality and disability in the UK require a response at every level and from all responsible authorities. As a society we must look after our vulnerable people better.”

Sue Killen, St John Ambulance chief executive, highlighted that more people learning first aid could radically reduce premature deaths.

And Enver Solomon, director of evidence and impact at the National Children’s Bureau agreed that the way to tackle avoidable deaths is through effective prevention, including public health programmes for children and improving school health provision.

Prof Sir Ian Gilmore, chair of the Alcohol Health Alliance, congratulated the Government for taking “brave steps” to introduce minimum pricing and cut excessive alcohol consumption.

Dr Andrew McCulloch, chief executive at the Mental Health Foundation, welcomed the Cardiovascular Disease Outcomes Strategy’s focus on better meeting psychological needs of people with CVD, but added that people with mental illness should have been identified as a priority group for action.

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