Like Darzi, BANT believes the NHS must reform and focus on prevention-led healthcare

British Association for Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine (BANT)

3 min read12 September Partner content

The Lord Darzi report states the NHS must ‘reform or die'

Like Labour, BANT believes the ‘NHS is broken’. Chronic disease results in patients requiring years of care at spiralling costs to the NHS. Of the £280.7 billion allocated to healthcare expenditure annually, £58 billion is spent on treating obesity related ill health alone (1,2). Over 50% of GP visits are now from patients living with metabolic disorders such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer – all of which require a dietary component to optimise treatment and prevention.

The Labour manifesto made clear the desire to shift the focus of the health system towards prevention, a vision shared by the British Association for Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine (BANT). We welcome the opportunity to work with the new government to make this a reality, and to present our BANT manifesto with focus on real food, and including nutrition and lifestyle practitioners in NHS primary care to prevent incidence of chronic disease.

At present, there is no nutrition service in NHS primary care and GPs have neither the time nor training to provide the nutrition support needed. We seek to address this with Labour to build immediate capacity within the NHS workforce and relieve pressure within primary care. To reverse this trend requires a focus on the drivers of chronic disease in the UK, namely preventative-health measures including nutrition and lifestyle. BANT has been advocating preventative-health measures for over 25 years and this is now not just an option but a necessity, as is also noted by the recent Lord Darzi report stating the NHS must ‘reform or die’.

It is reported that as few as 4,400 of the UK’s 10,000 Registered Dietitians are working in the NHS, predominantly in hospital settings (3,4). BANT represents nearly 3,000 PSA-accredited Registered Nutritional Therapy Practitioners, who serve communities across the UK primarily in private practice. BANT members are working routinely with NHS patients with chronic disease; through providing support on diet, lifestyle, and behaviour change.

NHS expenditure can be significantly reduced by releasing NHS staff and resources currently tied to the care of chronic conditions, to allow better outcomes in acute and critical care, and by bringing in qualified nutritional therapy practitioners to provide prevention-focused nutrition and lifestyle care. This is essential to realising the Labour vision for excellent primary care and moving from sickness to prevention. BANT seeks to discuss how its members could be of service in this endeavour.

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