Dr. Josep Vidal-Alaball

In April 2013 NHS England implemented the NHS Health Checks for adults between the ages of 40 and 74. The programme is aimed to help preventing heart disease, stroke, diabetes, kidney disease and certain types of dementia. Everyone between the ages of 40 and 74, who has not already been diagnosed with one of these conditions or have certain risk factors, will be invited (once every five years) to have a check to assess their risk of  having those conditions and will be given support and advice to help them reduce or manage that risk ( 1 , 2 ).   Public Health England (PHE) took over responsibility for overseeing implementation of this programme in April 2013 with local authorities being given the task of rolling out the programme to 20% of their eligible population each year over the next 5 years ( 3 ). According to the Health Secretary Hundreds of lives could be saved every year if more people took advantage of NHS health checks as a new review has...

…it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new Machiavelli N. The prince (written c 1505, published 1515, translated by WK Marriott). London: Arc Manor; 2007. Great article by    Trisha Greenhalgh: http://www.rnzcgp.org.nz/assets/documents/Publications/JPHC/June-2012/JPHCGuestEditorialGreenhalghJune2012.pdf

Entrevista Regió7 03/08/13 from Josep Vidal-Alaball