The NHS is important, providing treatment, relief and care in time of need, but no-one can claim it is responsible for more than 50% at the maximum of increased life expectancy.
So it follows that many other things need to be addressed too, to improve health and well-being especially of those with the worst health chances. All the old public health targets as well as a few more – poverty, unemployment, poor nutrition, dangerous work, over-work, bad housing, air pollution, poor education, fear for today and fear for the future, insecurity, helplessness, hopelessness. and lack of access to knowledge about health and lack of access to health promoting experiences like fresh air, exercise, affordable healthy food. The politicians all know most of this already, don’t they ? And so does almost everybody else. They know what they want their children to have or to avoid as they grow up.
Its not rocket science. Its much more important than that. Its restoring human understanding of what makes a good life and aiming towards a society where all can have one, instead of asking what (profitable) tests and medicines everyone should have to be ‘healthy’