Towards an asset-based NHS

Current health policies misunderstand the potential of patient involvement. The government is struggling to put a few professional representatives on powerless local boards, but ignoring the vital importance of a supportive neighbourhood if people are going to be healed and stay well.

The Health Minster has recently anounced a consultation on public health, partly as a way of tackling the issue of chronic health problems, and partly as a question of personal responsibility for personal health. While nef welcomes the consultation, this report questions the conventional premise under which the public health debate has been developing — loking at the role that retailers, schools and business might have, but ignoring the critical assets that the NHS already possesses: its patients and their neighbours, and its frontline staff.