The Scottish Government

This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007

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Health challenge to all Scots

17/03/2003

The challenge of transforming the health of Scotland's population was spelled out today in a new programme of improvement.

Improving Health in Scotland- the Challenge creates a framework for potential progress in four priority areas:

• Early Years- stressing the importance of infant and child health to later life.

• Teenage Transition- helping during a time of change and conflicting pressures on young people to support healthy choices. All schools will be health promoting schools by 2007

• Workplace- shifting to engage employers in improving health at work. Good physical and mental health means a happier and more productive workforce.

• Communities - active health improvement though new Community Planning Partnerships bringing together NHS, local authority and voluntary sector at local level.

Underpinning the challenge is more than £250m of Executive funding for the next three years. This comprises £173m announced last September in the Scottish Budget and existing health improvement funding.

The Challenge highlights 44 action points including bringing health improvement into the fore across the public sector planning and taking in diet, exercise, and promoting mental well being. Scottish researchers have made significant contributions in these areas.

It also stresses the importance of spreading good practice - where good schemes in one community can be applied elsewhere. Three national demonstration projects - Starting Well based in Glasgow, Have a Heart Paisley, and Healthy Respect in Lothian - are already up and running and providing a great insight into making a difference to people's quality of life.

At the Healthy Scotland Convetion in Edinburgh, Deputy First Minister Jim Wallace said:

"This is the first time all levels of government in Scotland have joined together for the common purpose of improving health. More importantly, there is now a clear vision which can be shared by NHS boards, local authorities and a whole range of voluntary bodies to rise to this challenge.

"Health is much more than treating symptoms of disease and health improvement is no longer a matter just for the Health Department. It is a matter for us all.

"The visionaries who created the National Health Service in the 1940s predicted demand on the NHS would fall as we became healthier. But we all know that much greater effort is required to achieve this. It means a seismic change in the way we as individuals view our health but it will bring enormous benefit to ourselves and future generations of Scots."

Health Minister Malcolm Chisholm said:

"We can only bring about long-term and sustainable improvement by attacking the causes of ill-health and promoting positive health and well being. That is why the Executive is laying down this challenge.

"There are many encouraging examples all over Scotland where communities are adopting a can-do approach to improving health, including diet, being more active and promoting mental and physical well being.

"But the scale of the Challenge is immense and we need to do a lot more. For too long deprivation and poverty have kept too many people on the low road to ill-health. There is no short term fix but we have to take radical measures now - and make the investment now - which will put Scotland back on the high road to good health."

He continued:

"It is true that Scotland has recently had a poor health record. It is also true that many aspects of health have improved: there are fewer premature deaths from heart disease and cancer and overall life expectancy has risen across Scotland. However, improvement is not taking place fast enough and a step change is required.

"We have to challenge lifestyles as well as change life circumstances. The issues for Scotland are similar to those facing many developed countries and include an increase in sedentary behaviours and an increased consumption of junk food.

"Together we can do a great deal. Central and local government can do a lot. So can employers, schools and the voluntary sector. And so can individuals, taking some responsibility for their own health and well being."

National attention to health improvement was first prompted by the poor physical state of Scottish recruits for the Boer War. This resulted in the 1902 Royal Commission which examined physical training for children, the importance of a nutritious diet and the links between ill-health and poverty.

Scottish researchers have been international leaders in this area. John Boyd-Orr's work on nutrition firstly at the Rowett Institute in Aberdeen and later as a Government adviser, earned him a Nobel Prize.

Shetland-born Sir Douglas Black wrote the classic work on health inequalities and followed this up ten years later. Endorphins - natural opiates in the brain which provide the feel-good benefit from exercise - were discovered by Professor Hans Kosterlitz in Aberdeen in the early 1970s.

In 1991 Vera Carstairs and Russell Morris used Scotland as the basis for their book on deprivation and health which found the widest disparities in Glasgow. It has since become a standard index.