Recent years have seen a proliferation of health charities in the UK, raising awareness and funds - but also contributing to impossible demands on the NHS. Is too much self-diagnosis creating unnecessary anxiety, and even leading to harmful interventions? How sick are we really? 

In this week’s long read, the New Statesman’s medical editor Dr Phil Whitaker examines the unintended consequences of the boom in awareness campaigns, drawing on several personal stories. What have been the impacts of post-pandemic NHS initiatives such as “Help Us Help You”, or the nationwide prompt to see a GP simply if something doesn’t “feel right”? Whitaker looks at the economic forces at work: the pharmaceutical companies who benefit and the rise of the preventative health industry, with its high-street blood tests and liquid biopsies. We ignore these shifts at our peril, he argues: if the NHS is to survive we need to understand our health, and our health services, better.

This article originally appeared in the 16 June edition of the New Statesman. You can read the text version here. Phil Whitaker’s new book, “What is a Doctor?”, will be published by Canongate in July.

Written by Phil Whitaker and read by Adrian Bradley.

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