Later during a morning panel discussion, Lord Geoffrey Filkin, lead author of A Covenant for Health, said there was ‘reason to be optimistic' that the new mission-led Government was serious about taking a fundamental shift towards prevention. 

Throughout the event speakers stressed the need for a holistic view on healthcare that incorporated housing, employment, education and skills, transport, and leisure and recreation. 

Keynote speaker, NHS national medical director, Professor Michael Powis, said prevention was ‘just about the most important thing the NHS needs to focus on at the moment' and there ‘had never been a more pressing time to prevent ill health'. 

Prof Powis also outlined the range of early interventions and national programmes the NHS had initiated on respiratory illness, stroke, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. 

He said the NHS ‘needed to organise differently as a health system much more focused on multiple conditions' going forward, adding empowering populations through the use of technology to manage their own health would be key. 

Prof Powis said the NHS had a crucial role to play in supporting primary prevention at a population level through Government legislation as well as supporting secondary prevention through individual interactions. 

The chief medical director said the NHS had made ‘a good start' but there was ‘definitely more to do', adding ICBs would take a central role in implementing prevention policies across local populations.