Safety Is Better Than Cure
Promotion of healthy lifestyles and the prevention of ill health is a fundamental principle behind public health and improving the public’s health. The phrase ‘prevention is better than cure’ is often attributed to the Dutch philosopher Desiderius Erasmus in around 1500.
It is now a fundamental principle of modern health care and inherent within health and social care strategies across the UK (See: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales ). Prevention is about tackling the upstream causes of ill health, this in itself is not controversial. The challenge is how it is paid for.
See: King’s Fund – Prevention is better than cure, except when it comes to paying for it, The results are not easily measured, because it is not easy to see where illness has not occurred. The UK has a rich history of focusing on prevention, from Edward Jenner’s smallpox vaccine in 1796 to John Snow using data analytics to determine the cause of the cholera outbreak in 1854.
While there has been huge progress across many public health trends, life expectancy in the UK has stalled and in some parts of the UK, has even decreased. There are worrying trends in health inequalities, with an unprecedented reversal in life expectancy for some groups and stark inequalities between healthy life expectancy between the most and least deprived areas.
Increasing rates of alcohol and drugs-related deaths and hospitalisations, STIs, and obesity and a shift in the pattern of ill health towards multiple health conditions are also indicative of the need for action. Nursing is essentially about providing quality evidence-based care and support to individuals and populations to improve health and well-being throughout life.
- In the past, public health has been seen as a niche specialty far removed from the typical image of nursing and only practiced by those with very specific qualifications.
- Nursing and midwifery staff are now increasingly recognised as instrumental in improving and supporting the public’s health at an individual, community and population level.
All nursing and midwifery staff are well placed to do this and need to embrace the contribution they can make to prevention. The ongoing challenge is having enough staff with the skills and time to make this essential contribution. The RCN have been campaigning for many years for a greater focus on prevention with adequate funding.
This is particularly pertinent in England, following the transfer of funding for public health to local authorities in 2013 and thereafter significant year on year cuts to local authority budgets and to the public health grant. The RCN welcomed the announcement in the recent 2019 spending review of a real terms increase to the public health grant, which we see as a step in the right direction.
However, indications are that the increase will likely fall short of the amount needed to offset the years of cuts and is not based on an assessment of population need. Improving public health and preventing ill health is about more than health services; and requires action to address the wider determinants of health, for example, education, transport and employment, which need to be addressed alongside health services in a more systematic way and with cross-government action and investment.
The RCN’s commitment is for a properly funded cross-government prevention strategy with a nursing workforce who are able to deliver this. We are calling for a long term sustainable investment in public health and prevention, which is based on assessment of population need and an understanding of health inequalities.
The RCN has key alliances with a number of organisations to support lobbying on public health. For example we are members of the Alcohol Health Alliance who have recently called for £1 billion spent in tax to alcohol industry to be spent on funding 40,000 nurse vacancies.
Contents
Why prevention is always better than cure?
Long Essay on Prevention is Better than Cure – There is a phrase ‘prevention is better than cure’ and it applies to many different facets of our lives. We use this phrase most commonly when we are talking about our health. In the winter season, our mother usually tells us to put on a sweater or a warm jacket because we might catch a cold or flu.
These suggestions given by our mothers are the best ways to prevent getting us sick from cold and flu. Hence, it is better to take appropriate preventive measures before you catch a cold or flu then after it has already ensued. To put this idiom in context with current world affairs, let’s understand ‘prevention is better than cure’ through the same.
Considering the current situation of the Coronavirus pandemic, we have been consistently told to practice social distancing, wear masks, and sanitise or wash hands frequently in order to protect yourself from infection. If we become infected with Covid-19, we will be sick for many days, and so many people have also died or spent days on the ventilator.
- Thus, if humans have adopted preventive measures to prevent getting sick from covid 19, they would not have had to deal with the consequences of contracting it in the first place.
- The same can be said about many other diseases, such as avoiding smoking to prevent cancer, avoiding sweets to prevent diabetes, etc.
are better than having to live with or find cures for cancer and diabetes. This is what we mean when we say that prevention is better than cure. It is a lot better to avoid something bad in the first place, rather than have to deal with its consequences later.
- Similarly, this same concept of prevention is better than cure can be applied to various strata of life.
- For example, a simple thing such as submitting an assignment for school on time prevents the consequences of getting into trouble if you had not submitted it.
- It has been said that, once you have said something, you can never take it back.
This can be applied here, too – if you get into an argument with your friend ensure not to use any harsh words which eventually hurts your friends feelings and emotions Simply put, prevention is better than cure because prevention leaves you with certainty that something bad will not happen.
Is it better to prevent or cure a disease?
Promotion of healthy lifestyles and the prevention of ill health is a fundamental principle behind public health and improving the public’s health. The phrase ‘prevention is better than cure’ is often attributed to the Dutch philosopher Desiderius Erasmus in around 1500.
- It is now a fundamental principle of modern health care and inherent within health and social care strategies across the UK (See: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales ).
- Prevention is about tackling the upstream causes of ill health, this in itself is not controversial.
- The challenge is how it is paid for.
See: King’s Fund – Prevention is better than cure, except when it comes to paying for it, The results are not easily measured, because it is not easy to see where illness has not occurred. The UK has a rich history of focusing on prevention, from Edward Jenner’s smallpox vaccine in 1796 to John Snow using data analytics to determine the cause of the cholera outbreak in 1854.
While there has been huge progress across many public health trends, life expectancy in the UK has stalled and in some parts of the UK, has even decreased. There are worrying trends in health inequalities, with an unprecedented reversal in life expectancy for some groups and stark inequalities between healthy life expectancy between the most and least deprived areas.
Increasing rates of alcohol and drugs-related deaths and hospitalisations, STIs, and obesity and a shift in the pattern of ill health towards multiple health conditions are also indicative of the need for action. Nursing is essentially about providing quality evidence-based care and support to individuals and populations to improve health and well-being throughout life.
In the past, public health has been seen as a niche specialty far removed from the typical image of nursing and only practiced by those with very specific qualifications. Nursing and midwifery staff are now increasingly recognised as instrumental in improving and supporting the public’s health at an individual, community and population level.
All nursing and midwifery staff are well placed to do this and need to embrace the contribution they can make to prevention. The ongoing challenge is having enough staff with the skills and time to make this essential contribution. The RCN have been campaigning for many years for a greater focus on prevention with adequate funding.
- This is particularly pertinent in England, following the transfer of funding for public health to local authorities in 2013 and thereafter significant year on year cuts to local authority budgets and to the public health grant.
- The RCN welcomed the announcement in the recent 2019 spending review of a real terms increase to the public health grant, which we see as a step in the right direction.
However, indications are that the increase will likely fall short of the amount needed to offset the years of cuts and is not based on an assessment of population need. Improving public health and preventing ill health is about more than health services; and requires action to address the wider determinants of health, for example, education, transport and employment, which need to be addressed alongside health services in a more systematic way and with cross-government action and investment.
- The RCN’s commitment is for a properly funded cross-government prevention strategy with a nursing workforce who are able to deliver this.
- We are calling for a long term sustainable investment in public health and prevention, which is based on assessment of population need and an understanding of health inequalities.
The RCN has key alliances with a number of organisations to support lobbying on public health. For example we are members of the Alcohol Health Alliance who have recently called for £1 billion spent in tax to alcohol industry to be spent on funding 40,000 nurse vacancies.
What does prevention better than cure mean?
This page is about the saying “Prevention is better than cure” Possible meaning: It’s better to take care that a problem does not happen than to have to solve the problem afterwards. It’s easier to stop something bad from happening in the first place than to fix the damage after it has happened.
Can you eradicate a disease without curing it?
Key requirements for disease eradication – There are several required aspects of a disease that need to be fulfilled in order for a disease to be considered eradicable:
It needs to be an infectious diseaseWe need to have ways to either prevent or treat the infection
For a disease to be eradicable it needs to be a disease you can “catch” from other humans or animals, that is it has to be infectious. Non-infectious diseases, such as heart disease or cancer, cannot be eradicated.9 Without an effective treatment against a disease there is no possibility of eradicating it.
Is prevention always better than cure countable or uncountable?
Prevention and cure both are uncountable noun.
