NHS 'from womb to tomb' - Johnson - News in brief

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Alan Johnson will echo the sentiment of the 1940s in a speech to health professionals in London.

The NHS was created in 1948 by Clement Attlee's government under the direction of health minister Aneurin Bevan.

The service was set up with a promise to provide people with health care from "the cradle to the grave".

Setting out plans to reduce health inequalities and give women grants to eat well in pregnancy, Mr Johnson will say that many factors determining health are established before babies are even born.

He will point to the body of research on how a baby's weight at birth determines their health in the future.

"In the short term, lower birth weight can lead to increased risk of cerebral palsy, visual impairment and deafness," he will say.

"In the medium term, it can slow down cognitive and physical development. In the long term, it can lead to chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardio vascular disease.

"If our mantra in the 1940s was 'from the cradle to the grave', then our vision for the 21st century should perhaps be 'from the womb to the tomb'," he will say.