Copperfield on the announcement of a men’s health strategy
To be honest, I could barely summon the energy to yawn at Streeting’s announcement of a first-ever men’s health strategy. Here we go, another opportunity to bang drums, disseminate misinformation and, above all, reinforce stereotypes. So I just scratched my fat arse, ordered more chips and beer and carried on polishing my Y chromosome.
We all know exactly what a Men’s Health Strategy will involve. A men’s health tsar (come on down, Johnny Vegas), propaganda about prostates, and bollocks about testicles, (probably with awareness days where we pin Buster-Gonad balloons to our groins). And men’s health hubs – because hubs solve everything. In this case, the hubs will be a place where men can relax with a tofu burger and a few shots of ginger and turmeric while watching Sky Yoga.
None of this will solve men’s health, because men’s health doesn’t need solving. Dig into the facts rather than the fatuousness and you discover some surprises. For example, male ‘under-use’ of health services compared to women is revealed as an illusion when you strip out the strictly XX stuff like antenatals, smears, mammography, family planning et al. Also, regular testicular self-examination is unscientific, illogical and should not be promoted, and if you don’t understand why, see me after class for a session on ‘Coppa feel for the evidence’. And yes, OK, men are under-represented at NHS health checks, but as these checks themselves have a dodgy evidence base, maybe men aren’t so stupid after all.
Which isn’t to say men don’t have issues with their health. But so do the elderly, children, northerners etc etc. You could siphon off any subgroup you like and go tub-thumping on their behalf. But the fundamental problem they all face, that dwarfs anything peculiar to their demographic, is the same: the failing system. No one – male/female, young/old, black/white etc etc – can get even the most basic service from our doom-spiralling NHS. Appointments are scanty, waiting times a joke, follow-ups non-existent, quality plummeting, communication shocking and so on.
We all know this. And championing the ‘health needs’ of random sections of society is just a gimmicky paper-over-of-the-cracks distraction. Fix the system, not the subgroup. We need bread, not circuses. Gluten free for us men, obviously.
Dr Tony Copperfield is a GP in Essex
Hmm, fat arse, chips and beer – sounds like Stevo at med school (latterly consultant orthopod, and a bit of a Paul Anka). If these men’s clinics dish out advice against scratching said arse or crotch and sniffing it, then defo it’s for the likes of fat Stevo whose regular nights out meant 10 pints and 20 fags. Advice could be given for Stevo’s STDs (as was), his fart-lighting, and his guzzling of yesterday’s pizza crusts retrieved from our shared house bin (ffs, fat Stevo). Not to say anything about a bit of re-education cognitive therapy for his basketful of -isms.
They could do an ad campaign – a bloke with chocolate around his chops really getting a couple of fingers into the chocolate spread jar, really scooping out that last bit of chocolate, twisting his fingers about, digging deeper – and then the tagline: “it’s less embarrassing to get your prostate checked.” Pay Johnny Vegas to do it..
But seriously….agree the NHS is in ICU and, instead of 40 days to save it, Wes with calculated carelessness offers distraction and a 10 year plan….
Absolutely. NHS is proper broken now. Whatever quality I bring in consultations is pissing in the wind. As for Starmer’s “reform” agenda rather than “invest”, SO disheartening. NHS is done for and so am I in 6 months time.
Couldn’t have put it better if I tried! Treating the unwell is a hard enough ask at the moment. We absolutely have no need to whip up a whole new demographic of worried well and scare them into swamping the system even more! RIP NHS you did your best…..
Spot on. The system is broken. Promising too much and has lost focus on basic healthcare.