Government’s leading health adviser visits Keele University
Keele welcomed Professor Chris Whitty, the Chief Scientific Adviser for the Department of Health, to the School of Medicine recently.
Professor Whitty, an epidemiologist and physician, visited Keele’s Medical School in early April to meet GPs, academics and researchers to discuss what the future of healthcare will look like in Britain.
During Professor Whitty's presentation to the School, he said: “We need to look at what the future of health will look like, because if you look at science it doesn't always progress in a logical way to the bigger problems. Certain areas naturally progress very fast and others don’t move at all, so we end up with islands of excellence and deserts where nothing has changed for the last 20 years.
"So if you’re going to be serious about trying to look at research to help the health of the nation, you must look at areas that are doing well and where things are flatlining.”
Professor Whitty identified areas which health professionals need to concentrate on for the future, focusing on both the demography and geography of ill health - which he predicts will shift significantly.
Professor Whitty said: “Mortality rates have steadily gone down across the UK. This is down to a combination of science, economic advancement and excellent medicine available across all levels, but over the next two decades the demography of the UK in terms of ill health will shift in a profound way.
“Cities and towns usually import youth and export the middle aged, meaning the demographic of cities will remain constant over the next 20 years, but the rest of the country will get a lot older, much faster. From this trend we expect to see an increasing concentration of old age in non-urban areas, and an increase of ill-health. This is a new challenge to how we will have to deliver healthcare in the future.”
Professor Whitty is also a Consultant Physician in acute medicine and infectious diseases at University College London Hospitals and the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, and a Professor of Public and International Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine,
Professor Andrew Hassell, Head of the School of Medicine at Keele University, said: “We were delighted and grateful that Professor Whitty was able to spend the day at Keele. As well as seeing the School of Medicine and meeting some of its staff, it gave him the chance to get a real feel for some of the top quality health research (and researchers) undertaken within the Faculty, particularly within the Institute of Primary Care and Health Sciences. In turn, we gained some invaluable insights into NIHR perspectives on UK health research.”