Overweight? Get on the treadmill!

[661-Pete]

Amidst the dreadful happenings reported in the news yesterday, the following item may have slipped by unnoticed by many:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/ ... betes.html

This is of some interest to me, because I have for many years been on the fat side (though currently I'm just below the 'obese' threshold ). Also my HbA1c (blood glucose) was in the 'pre-diabetic' bracket when measured about a year ago (46, though it later dropped to 43. Normal is 42 or less).

So I wonder if I'm going to be considered as one of the candidates, and due to receive a summons to the treadmill or whatever? My immediate inclination is to say, don't bother with me - after all I do still cycle (though not enough! ). Spend the money on the real lardarses who do nothing for themselves and cost the NHS millions....

What do people think? If it's really going to cost only around £320 per person, that seems an incredibly cheap way of avoiding expensive protracted hospital treatment later in life...

[horizon]

What do people think? If it's really going to cost only around £320 per person, that seems an incredibly cheap way of avoiding expensive protracted hospital treatment later in life...

This looks like it's going to cost £32m. I think that's great value for money and I support it. But with the NHS it's always a case of "Follow the money": so I wondered who is going to provide the service, who lobbied for it and who gets to profit. There's no mention of that in the Telegraph report.

[Annoying Twit]

I like treadmills. But, you can't force people to be healthy, they have to want to be. I'm cynical that threats to withdraw NHS cover from the unfit are motivated more by an expectation that many people won't get fit and less money will be spent on them. Universal healthcare should be a human right, IMHO.

[horizon]

The providers are as follows:

Four providers (Reed Momenta, Pulse Healthcare Limited trading as ICS Health and Wellbeing, Health Exchange CIC and Ingeus UK Limited) have been chosen to join the NHS Provider Framework

So there you go. It's still a good thing IMV but it's interesting how firms are positioning themselves in services to get more money out of the NHS rather than say offering new drugs. But the contracts have to be big to justify the investment in all that lobbying. Health Exchange CIC is a community interest company. One day it could be the CTC (sorry, Cycling UK) bidding for this kind of work.