The aims of the NHS
and manufacturer-branded products). 23 People have been pushed towards low or zero sugar products to save the additional cost. Some are calling for the government to clamp down on snacks and milkshakes too, which are currently exempt from taxation and contain very high levels of sugar. This could be a reason to explain the rise in consumption of sugar: the majority of products are exempt from taxation and thus, as shown by the impact of the sugar tax on soft-drinks manufacturers, an attempt to widen this tax could alleviate the issue of obesity in the future. However, others claim that the introduction of further taxes may be to the detriment of people’s freedom and the government must trust people to make right decisions and people must take ownership. Primary research suggests that some people believe that a sugar tax punishes less affluent members of society, rather than addressing obesity itself and thus highlights the controversy around this initiative. Despite this controversy, the government is attempting to protect public health by decreasing disease levels through the sugar tax, but the results are too early to verify the tax has been successful.
Aim II. Secure improvement in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of illness
Vaccinations Vaccinations have been vital in the prevention of illness and disease and the World Health Organization (WHO) states that after clean water, vaccinations have had the greatest impact on the world’s health. 24 The UK government’s immunization programmes have proved to be successful in the elimination of several life-threatening diseases, such as polio and smallpox. The UK government has achieved this by launching numerous vaccination programmes to eradicate diseases, in particular for children, where there is a strict schedule of vaccines. This section will focus on the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine and particularly on measles. In 1988, the MMR vaccine was introduced to offer a single vaccination andmarked the beginning of the fight against these three diseases. 25 However, significantly, in 1998 a paper by Dr AndrewWakefield in the Lancet 26 claiming a link between the MMR vaccine and autism/bowel disease undermined the government’s efforts in fulfilling Aim II. Wakefield was eventually struck off the medical register and investigations concluded that his research was unethical, funded by anti-vaccine lawyers and deliberately found data to support his point. 27 Concerns among parents had risen and led to a decrease inMMR uptake, which dropped to around 80% in the late 1990s. TheWHO recommends that over 95% of the population must be vaccinated in order to achieve herd immunity. 28 This dramatic fall, which took several years to recover, led to the susceptibility of many children to measles; the government, in fulfilment to ‘the prevention of illness’, led several catch -up programmes to reach out to those that had not taken the vaccine and the 2008 London catch-up programme increased coverage in under five year olds from 75% to 81%. 29
23 Public Health England, September 2019. 24 Public Health England, 2013. 25 Welch, 2018. 26 Wakefield, et al., 1998. 27 Welch, 2018. 28 Public Health England, January 2019. 29 Public Health England, January 2019.
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