Are you ready?

There are plenty of reports that lifestyle illness costs the NHS £11 billion every year. Looking at the costs and the obesity map, it really does look like the majority of people don't care about their lifestyle choices to me.
I'm more upset about the £11 billion than I am about cinema tickets - which at £10 a pop is 17 cinema tickets for every person in the UK each year.
I'm hoping that it works, people become healthier and the NHS is under less financial pressure.

No I don't agree at all Primrose while people are spoonfed they ll sit back and let others worry about them
Do you remember when George best was given a new organ only to bugger the second one up with his lifestyle choices do you truely believe cinema tickets will make non walkers walk they might walk to get the tickets or more likely they ll find a way of cheating to get the tickets but will it make them change their lifestyle .... no
We had a great incentive last year in the town, little techno things were put on lampposts and you had to 'sign in' at all the different stops It was done as a competition to encourage kids to collect all these various points as they walked around clicking on the various lampposts so what happened to this great incentive The parents started driving the kids around letting them jump out the car click on and then jump back into the car and other parents took loads of the 'filling in cards' and went from post to post in the car without even the kids being on board
We had the people quitting smoking when they were told they wouldn't get their operation if they were a smoker

The NHS money should be spent on genuine illnesses

That should read more people in the last paragraph ( but without an edit button hint hint)

BlueBelle that is the right word - bribery.

If I manage 12,500 steps in a week might I get a cinema ticket? I think I'll deserve one.
Are these to be offered to people who would and could walk this amount anyway daily? Thus discriminating against people who are unable to achieve that due to whatever reason?

What about spending the money on genuine illnesses - perhaps speeding up the wait for knee or hip replacements etc so that people who need these are able to at least become mobile again (if not 12,500 steps per day).

kittylester
sweet or salted?

I'd rather live a long life, free from disease
I think that everyone would but unfortunately some diseases are hereditary, work-related or due to environmental issues.

Most illnesses are lifestyle related. From birth to death. Having children is a life style choice and living makes death a lifestyle choice.

It could be argued that those who die early from self induced medical complaints are saving the government a fortune in pension payments and reducing the need for new housing and new roads.

So is the answer to refuse NHS treatment for lifestyle disease?

Hospital waiting rooms and outpatients is the place to see obesity and I am talking nursing staff.
I am far from the only one to remark on this.

People don't simply die earlier M0nica. They are on handfuls of tablets every day, see the GP regularly, have blood tests, operations .....

How many steps is it to walk to Switzerland?

Jalima both!

If it's all about healthy lifestyles, then why Ocado? With them, you have to park your posterior in front of a PC or tablet and order online. Surely much better to give tokens for some chain that doesn't deliver; even if you choose to drive there, you'll have to walk across the car park, then push the trolley up and down the aisles and, as they say, every little helps!

There's more to it than cinema tickets and Ocado. It's an interesting concept for new towns, housing developers will be asked to provide new homes with free bikes, children will be able to walk to school - it's about planning a town to promote a healthy lifestyle.

Primrose The cost for the health service is balanced by the savings on pensions, and house and road costs etc.

There are plenty of places that already have residential areas that encourage healthy living. All new housing developments have to file a sustainable living report as part of the planning procedure and all new house buyers are provided with bus and train timetables. New estates have cycle paths and footpaths.

But as they say you can take a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. Most children in my village can walk to to the village school, but many parents drop their children off on their way to work - and who can blame them. Bus timetables are all very well, but buses need to run at convenient times on convenient routes for those who would use them. There have to be footpaths beside roads. Bike lanes need to interconnect. Giving people bikes with houses is a nice token thing to do and wins the developer brownie points but unless there is a real infrastructure, not just in the immediate area but for at least 5 miles around

In Oxfordshire the county is reducing bus subsidies so bus routes are being withdrawn.

More children could walk to school if they were guaranteed a place at their closest school, but often this is not the case now. Parents are expected to shop around and then arrange to ferry their children to the most suitable school (or the nearest one that will accept them). At secondary level, there are all sorts of academies with different specialities, religious schools, single-sex schools, selective schools, etc, so the nearest suitable school may be many miles away.