French Health Policy To Stress Prevention

French health policy is changing its emphasis from care to prevention,Health Secretary Bernard Koucher has told a national health conference.

Two aims will have top priority, he said; improving the health of young people and children, with the stress on prevention, and diagnosis and prevention of cancers. Next come infections contracted in hospitals and a reduction in regional inequalities in health care provision.

Meantime, despite the failure of the previous French government to adopt prescription guidelines last year, the drug industry association, the SNIP, notes that "doctors prescribe less spontaneously."