Health systems across the world are facing unprecedented pressures. Populations are ageing, the prevalence of long-term conditions continues to rise, healthcare workforces are under increasing strain, and the costs of treating preventable illness continue to escalate. Despite decades of evidence demonstrating that many chronic diseases are preventable, healthcare systems remain largely organised around treating illness rather than preventing it. This imbalance is no longer sustainable. At the Self-Care Academic Research Unit (SCARU) , together with the International Self-Care Foundation (ISF) and the Self-Care Forum (SCF) , we believe the next evolution of healthcare must place prevention where it belongs: at the centre of health systems. That belief has led to the development of the Declaration on Self-Care and Lifestyle Medicine , a consensus framework that sets out how health systems can better integrate prevention, behavioural healthcare and person-ce...
Updates from the Department of Primary Care and Public Health at Imperial College