BANT welcomes the Labour Government and urges the new Health Secretary to deliver on his pledge for prevention focused healthcare
The British Association for Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine (BANT) has responded to the new Labour Government:
BANT CEO Satu Jackson said: "We congratulate the Labour Party and new Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, and look forward to working together under the new Government. BANT welcomes the opportunity to meet with the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting and his team to deliver on the Labour manifesto pledge to shift the health system focus towards prevention and build an NHS fit for the future, a vision shared by BANT as outlined in our manifesto.
BANT calls for these commitments to now be transformed into action.
Previous governments have failed to adequately invest in prevention. As a result, the NHS is dangerously understaffed, and overburdened with many serious, but preventable diet and lifestyle-driven chronic diseases. Yet, there is currently no provision for nutritional therapists in the NHS – BANT seeks to urgently address with the new Health Secretary.
BANT represents 2,500 PSA-accredited Registered Nutritional Therapy Practitioners within its broader membership of 3,500 nutrition professionals - presenting an untapped opportunity to scale up and build capacity within the NHS workforce. By bringing nutritional therapists into primary care and outpatient settings, they would relieve the burden on General Practitioners at the ‘front door of the health service’ and align with the Labour vision for excellent primary care.
BANT firmly believes that nutrition provision needs to be at the heart of any strategy to refocus our health system towards prevention.
