Mmmmmm i love the smell of chickens coming home to roost :P
'Patients to lose weight before NHS treatment'
By James Kirkup Political Correspondent
Last Updated: 12:39am GMT 01/01/2008
Patients
could be required to stop smoking, take exercise or lose weight before
they can be treated on the National Health Service, Gordon Brown has
suggested.
Health premiums slashed for gym usersIn
a New Year message to NHS staff, the Prime Minister indicates people
may have to fulfil new "responsibilities" in order to establish their
entitlement to care.
Conditional treatment: Smokers are one group of patients that may be asked to change their habits
The new conditions could be set out in a formal NHS "constitution", Mr Brown says.
In
his open letter to doctors, nurses and other health workers, the Prime
Minister promises to press on with Tony Blair's reforms of the NHS,
pledging more personalised care for all patients.
He adds: "We will also examine how all these changes can be enshrined
in a new constitution of the NHS, setting out for the first time the
rights and responsibilities associated with an entitlement to NHS care."
Creating formal conditions for treatment would build on recent controversial developments in health policy.
Despite
the NHS commitment to provide free universal care, it is already common
for doctors to set conditions on patients seeking treatment.
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The
National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence already considers
so-called self-induced illnesses in setting the criteria that determine
which patients should qualify for new or expensive health treatments.
And
this year Leicester City Primary Care Trust was given Government
approval to ask smokers to quit before they are given places on waiting
lists for operations such as hip replacements and heart surgery.
Obese people also face more conditions from doctors who say being very overweight unnecessarily complicates many procedures.
For example, fertility doctors have argued that very obese women should be denied access to IVF treatment.
Mr Brown has promised more "personalised" services from the NHS.
He makes clear that his reforms will rest on people being more accountable for their own health, too.
"We
will describe how we will achieve our shared ambition of an NHS which
is more personal and responsive to individual needs," the Prime
Minister writes.
"Personalised not just because
patients can get the treatment that they need when and where they want,
but because from an early stage we are all given the information and
advice to take greater responsibility for our own health."
Katherine Murphy, a spokesman for the Patients Association, raised fears about the spread of conditions in the NHS.
She
said: "We would have concerns about this. Patients do have a right to
access to care and we would be very concerned if people were to be
denied access to care.
"Is this being done for the patient, or is it just another way of saving money?"
Since becoming Prime Minister, critics say Mr Brown has sent mixed messages about his plans for NHS reform.
But
Mr Brown makes clear the NHS must change to respond more quickly and
directly to the wishes and needs of its patients, just as businesses
respond to their customers.
"I believe these are steps vital to securing the health of the NHS for the next 60 years," Mr Brown says.
"They
will require a broadening and a deepening of reform to ensure that the
NHS as a whole attaches the same priority to a personal and
preventative service as many of you already reflect in your own
day-to-day decisions."
