The current BMJ has an article entitled UK could have averted 240 000 deaths in 2010s if it matched other European nations. Here is its staring passage:
The UK has fallen far behind its international peers on a range of health outcomes and major policy reforms are required to reverse this, a report1 has concluded.
Analysts from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) calculated that there would have been 240 000 fewer deaths in the UK between 2010 and 2020 if the UK matched average avoidable mortality in comparable European nations.
The report says the UK’s poor outcomes are partly down to people’s inability to access healthcare in a timely manner, a problem that has intensified since the pandemic.
To tackle this, the progressive think tank has put forward a 10 point plan to shift the NHS from a sickness service to a prevention service. It says primary care should be placed at the heart of a “prevention first” NHS with a nationwide rollout of neighbourhood health hubs to deliver integrated health and care services in every local area…
INTEGRATED HEALTH?
Isn’t that the nonsense Charles III, Michael Dixon, THE COLLEGE OF MEDICINE AND INTEGRATED HEALTH and many others promote? The integrated health we discussed so often before, e.g.:
- Prince Charles becomes patron of the ‘College of Medicine and Integrated Health’
- The ‘All-Party Parliamentary Group for Integrated Healthcare (PGIH) have just published a new report – and it’s full of surprises
- Eurocam press release in favor of integrated medicine
- A new definition of ‘INTEGRATED MEDICINE’
- Integrative medicine: one of the most colossal deceptions in healthcare today
- INTEGRATED MEDICINE: a disservice to patients?
- Integrated/integrative medicine: a paradise for charlatans?
The UK ‘Integrated Medicine Alliance’ offers information sheets on all of the following treatments: Acupuncture, Alexander Technique, Aromatherapy, Herbal Medicine, Homeopathy, Hypnotherapy, Massage, ,Naturopathy, Reflexology, Reiki, Tai Chi, Yoga Therapy. The one on homeopathy, for example, tells us that “homeopathy … can be used for almost any condition either alone or in a complementary manner.” Is the BMJ thus promoting homeopathy and similar dubious treatments?
The answer is, of course, NO!
The BMJ supports INTEGRATED HEALTH as defined not by quacks but by real experts: “Integrated care, also known as integrated health, coordinated care, comprehensive care, seamless care, or transmural care, is a worldwide trend in health care reforms and new organizational arrangements focusing on more coordinated and integrated forms of care provision. Integrated care may be seen as a response to the fragmented delivery of health and social services being an acknowledged problem in many health systems.”
I have often wondered why quacks use established terms, give it a different meaning and use it for confusing the public. I suppose the answer is embarrassingly simple: they thrive on confusion, want to hide the fact that they have no convincing arguments of their own, and like to use the established terminology of others in order to push their agenda and maximize their benefits.
2 Responses to A nationwide rollout of integrated health?
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“Transmural” was a new one to me. I guessed that it meant “across walls”, thinking that in this context it may mean walls artificially dividing treatment medicine from prevention medicine.
On looking it up, I see that it is a specific medical term relating to blood vessels.
Conceptually, I have read, Britain’s National Health Service had prevention at its core, in 1948. The idea was that in its initial operation, it would over time raise the nation’s health to a peak, which would prevent disease and reduce the future need for the service.
Of course things didn’t quite work out that way, as science advanced, and more treatment options and expensive diagnostic machinery became available.
I’ve always found that GPs in my local medical practice, do practice holistic medicine, taking social and lifestyle factors into account.
There are limits, mind you, to what can be achieved, if patients simply do not want to alter diet, exercise, and substance abuse factors.
I guess “Transmural” is the same concept as eliminating “Silo-ing” in organisations.
This is a system of administration where staff groups that are in effect working together (e.g. same ward) towards the same goal are organisationally contained in separate silo’s, which hinder progress and problem solving.
Any effort to communicate change or solve a problem needs to first to travel up the silo echelon (hierarchy) to the top where the communication takes place (is often diluted or destroyed) between the top administration layers and results hopefully reach in the end down the other ladder of hierarchy into the the other silo.
I know very well how eliminating this kind of compartmentalisation e.g. between the nursing staff and the physician staff can result in great and efficient health care.