Meeting of the Parliament 04 June 2015
I thought that what Simon Stevens said yesterday was interesting. It touched on something that Hugh Henry, Duncan McNeil and others have mentioned, which is the need for people to become more responsible about understanding the relationship that they have with their healthcare.
People now understand that they could live much longer lives, potentially into great old age. We have to begin an education process at a much earlier stage whereby we inform people of the fact that the quality of the last 30 years of their lives can be dramatically compromised by the decisions that they make and the ways in which they interact with their health at an earlier stage.
Our health education policies tend to isolate our understanding of particular actions we can take, without necessarily trying to incentivise people, since the health service can never not treat people. However, we need to incentivise people to understand that the quality of life that they can ultimately enjoy will be dramatically affected by the decisions that they make. We need to start demonstrating to people—particularly those who are not addicted to alcohol but who drink too much on a sustained basis without properly understanding the issues that may materialise in later middle age, such as cirrhosis of the liver—the effects that their choices can have.
I will have more to say in summing up, but for now I am happy to support the motion and the Labour Party amendment.