5/5. The NHS is under huge strain as it struggles to cope with an ageing population and illnesses caused by unhealthy lifestyles on top of increasingly expensive drugs, procedures and treatments. It's an unsustainable situation, says former NHS chief executive Nigel Crisp, and requires a complete rethink of the way we think about and manage health. In the final programme of the "Healthy Visions" series Lord Crisp develops the ideas covered in the previous four programmes to argue that all of...

4/5. In 1900 about 4% of the population was aged over 65 - now it is over 20%. And within the foreseeable future we can expect most people to live to the age of 90 . This, says Professor John Ashton of the Faculty of Public Health, means we need big changes to how older people live - especially how they are housed. In his "Healthy Visions" programme, John Ashton inverts the usual terms of the housing debate. He believes that by concentrating on the needs of older people, the housing problems...

Dame Carol Black argues that it is important to promote health and well-being at work. Both employers and employees need to do their part. If they do, it will benefit everybody - companies, staff and the NHS. Achieving improved health in the workplace, she says, can help to significantly reduce demand on stretched NHS services. But the benefits are not just for the NHS. Healthier staff will feel better, be more productive, and happier at work. And employers can save money on sick pay or the...

2/5 Most health care is delivered face to face with a highly and expensively qualified practitioner who acts as gatekeeper to any treatment we receive. If we seek advice from our GP, they will generally either prescribe medication, refer us for investigative tests or send us to a specialist consultant who will in turn assess our need for treatment. In the second programme of this Healthy Visions series, Dr Charles Alessi argues that this model of how we access and interact with our health...

Healthy Visions offers five expert views of how healthcare can and must change if current levels of provision are to be maintained and grown - meeting the high level of expectation from patients as medical advances continue and as the population becomes larger and older. In this edition Dr Michael Dixon argues that the idea of doctor as ultimate dispenser of all medicine, may have to be sacrificed, with the expertise of a wide range of health practitioners called upon to get best care. Dixon...