https://arab.news/mnhed
- NHS needs to focus more on maintaining overall health, says Raghib Ali
- Too many patients presenting with advanced diseases developed over decades
RIYADH: The UK’s National Health Service has been more of a “national sickness service” focusing more on treating disease instead of maintaining overall health and preventing illness, the head of a leading research program said during a Riyadh conference on Tuesday.
Raghib Ali, CEO of Our Future Health UK — the country’s largest health research project — made the remarks during a panel session at the second Global Healthspan Summit, of which Arab News is a media partner.
“The NHS has often functioned more as a national sickness service,” Ali said. “We need to pivot toward a model that prioritizes health maintenance rather than just treating diseases.”
Ali spoke about how his career began 25 years ago as a junior doctor in an emergency department.
He recognized a critical flaw in the health care system; too many patients were presenting with advanced diseases that had developed over decades.
“What we were doing as doctors was good, of course, we could treat our patients,” he said. “But too often, we were seeing patients with diseases that had developed over decades.
“If we could have found those people much earlier and intervened, we could have prevented or delayed those conditions significantly.”
Conditions such as heart attacks, strokes and cancers were often treated only after they became severe, highlighting the urgent need for earlier intervention.
The concept of healthspan — the period of life spent in good health — has gained traction as the traditional health care model has been criticized for overly focusing on disease management.
Despite advances in diagnostics and treatments, rising rates of multimorbidity, mental health issues and health inequalities are prevalent not only in the UK but across many parts of the world.
To combat this, Ali emphasized the importance of using new methodologies: “Innovative technologies — like polygenic risk scores and digital interventions — are vital in creating a more tailored approach to health,” he said.
Ali added: “Our goal is not just to extend life but to compress morbidity, ensuring that the period of ill health is as short as possible.”
While the adage “prevention is better than cure” has long been accepted, much of the research has focused on animal models rather than human populations.
To change this, Ali stressed the need for “a robust health research program that encompasses a diverse cohort of participants to understand how to improve healthspan effectively.”
Our Future Health UK was established to address gaps in research by creating a large, ethnically and socioeconomically diverse cohort that could provide valuable insights into healthspan interventions.
It aims to engage millions of individuals across various demographics, including younger populations, to understand the factors driving multimorbidity and how to effectively enhance healthy lifespans.
Ali highlighted the importance of making participation accessible and appealing to people from all walks of life.
“One of our key objectives is to decrease inequalities. We aim to make participation as straightforward as possible to engage individuals from all backgrounds,” he said.
Ali’s discussion emphasized that the future of healthspan medicine lay in effectively harnessing data.
By creating a comprehensive evidence base that includes insights from a wide range of participants, researchers hope to better understand which interventions are most effective and cost-efficient to develop large-scale public health strategies.