The King's Fund think-tank has warned that, without radical change, progress in improving the population's health is at risk of grinding to a halt.
Health improvements over the last century have meant that each generation has lived longer, healthier lives than their predecessors. But in a new report, The King's Fund argues that progress has stalled.
There has been little or no improvement in how long people live with illness and disease since 1990, infant mortality rose in 2015 and 2016, as the UK slid further down the international rankings on child health, and UK adult obesity rates are among the worst in the developed world.
Ahead of the forthcoming NHS long-term plan, the report argues that these challenges cannot be tackled by the NHS alone, and calls on the Government to use next year's Spending Review to reverse cuts to public health grants.
