Despite these achievements, however, problems with health outcomes remain. Moreover, other European countries have also improved their health outcomes in recent decades, often at a faster rate than the UK. Consequently, the UK now lags behind many other European countries in key health outcomes in areas such as child health and cancer survival.
I conclude that new health policies in the UK should help the NHS to focus on improving health outcomes and that politically expedient schemes that are not evidence-based – such as extended opening hours in primary care – should be abandoned. Continued progress is also needed on wider determinants of health such as poverty, housing, education, employment, and the environment.