Our NHS is a ‘National Sickness Service’. Let’s Change That.

When was the last time you interacted with the NHS? Even in our pre-COVID world, I would take a stab at guessing the interaction was based around a medical issue that you or a friend experienced.

I must preface this by highlighting the cruciality of our current NHS service. Receiving treatment for any healthcare issue is critical and nothing should be subtracted from that. Over the past year, COVID-19 has highlighted the need for every single person to prioritise the health of ourselves and others. Countless beacons of information have been broadcast adviaing us on the dangers it presents, the ways in which we can prevent transmission, and what to do if we catch it. Again, critical information, but it begs the question why prevention methods such as healthy living haven’t been given the same priority.

Is our health & wellbeing not just as important as the treatment received when we are sick?

How many times have you been informed about maintaining a healthy lifestyle from healthcare professionals over the past year? The posters and adverts you see about COVID, such as the one above, do a fantastic job at informing us on how to reduce transmission and what to do if infected. Two parts of a three piece puzzle.

Let’s explore some theory behind it all. 63% of adults in the UK are overweight or obese, which is a major threat that COVID thrives upon. How much effort would be required to add on a bullet or two around fitness & healthy living? As a UX Designer, I would maybe reformat the bottom half and free up some room there, or create space for a few bullet points above it. Nothing is subtracted from the information currently presented, and those who read the whole advert will notice the importance of keeping fit. Even small reminders like those suggested could make 1% of those reading think about their evening meal, or look outside and notice that the weather today is nice enough for a jog (well, I just did that and it’s thick of snow here. But you get the idea). Little changes snowball into regular routines. Those people influenced to change their lifestyle become stimulated, and if they do catch the virus, they are 37% less likely to die from it than if they hadn’t changed their lifestyle. That can lead to a massive reduction in hospitalisations, thus freeing up beds for those who have underlying health conditions. A small change to advertising could reduce the mortality rate dramatically.

With vaccinations across the UK rolling out at an exponential rate, we are beginning to look towards the endgame of this war against an invisible enemy. When we forget the infection, will we remember the lesson? How can we (re)allocate resources in our NHS to promote healthy living going forward?

There are many answers out there waiting to be pursued. I worked closely with a team providing outsourcing solutions to the NHS over the past 6 months, and the discussions we had are very promising but need to be prioritised. For example, in the digital world COVID has thrusted upon us, we have been able to reduce face-to-face appointment frequency substantially through the introduction of online consultation services. Email and chatbot solutions have saved valuable hours in the day for GPs nationwide. As technology progresses, more and more reliability can be placed upon these processes. This provides opportunity to reallocate resources and tackle other issues. Further calls for automation in other areas have been made, such as general admin and networking solutions, which again creates more opportunities without necessarily needing a larger budget. That budget can be used for healthy living by creating new campaigns, updating current information to platform it, or training staff to further campaign it when communicating with the public.

The current perception of the NHS (and most healthcare services worldwide) is that we turn to them when we are sick. We very rarely think about the NHS when we look to maintaining good health. Perhaps this is an ingrained habit of “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it”, but this overshadows the necessity of maintenance. Personally, I focus on the importance of mindfulness in my life. However, exercises such as meditation which are used to practise this, I only really turn to in times of need. I know that regular meditation keeps a flourishing mind, but I didn’t know how up until watching the new Headspace Netflix series. By learning that regular meditation has been scientifically proven to strengthen the positive areas of your brain (similarly to muscle growth), I have made it a priority to practise regularly. The same can be said for physical exercise too. Generally speaking, most people start a fitness programme when they notice an issue such as weight gain. Information could be pushed by the NHS to demonstrate the continual health benefits of exercise and persuade more people to look after their body before it becomes an issue.

Let’s put the ‘Health’ back into ‘National Health Service’.