A strategic health initiative: context for Coronavirus
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CURMUDGEON CORNER
A strategic health initiative: context for Coronavirus Richard Ennals1 Received: 20 March 2020 / Accepted: 23 March 2020 © Springer-Verlag London Ltd., part of Springer Nature 2020
The current Coronavirus pandemic is a disruptive event, a global “Kodak Moment” (Johnsen et al 2018). Life will not be the same again. This does not mean that there had been no previous warnings. We now need to think about ways forward after the pandemic. Back in September 1985, at a conference in Brighton hosted by the AI&Society Editor, Karamjit Gill, on “Artificial Intelligence for Society”, we discussed ways forward in our field. I was working at Imperial College and in the UK Alvey Directorate, designing and managing research and development in Advanced IT. I outlined a suggested “Strategic Health Initiative”, which was published in AI For Society (Ennals 1986b), and in Star Wars: A Question of Initiative (Ennals 1986a). Over the last 34 years, there have of course been many major technological advances. However, I suggest that the principles set out in the paper remain valid for the new context in March 2020. The Strategic Health Initiative in 1986 argued for drawing on progress in medical science, advanced computing and social administration. It was then held that success would have enormous potential benefits, not only for the health of the nation, but also for the economy. Improved health and medical services would provide considerable financial benefits, as would the development of a better trained workforce. It would have direct effects on the whole population, bringing them into contact with computer technology in a benevolent context, reducing the division into two nations of “haves” and “have nots” with respect to health and computer literacy. The health of individuals is seen as integral to the health of the nation. Illness is not a crime to be punished by financial penalties, and information concerning the restoration of health should be freely available in accessible terms. Reflecting back on the 1986 intiative, one significant area for the application of advanced technology was identified as the Health Service. At the time of its establishment in 1948, the National Health Service (NHS) was a model for * Richard Ennals [email protected] 1
Kingston University, Kingston Hill, Kingston KT2 7LB, UK
international health care provision, and a central part of the policy of a government which was concerned to strengthen its people after suffering and war, seeing such provision as an essential investment. The NHS has since suffered from government neglect, with funding failing to match needs, and hospitals not being equipped with the same level of technology that should be standard in other advanced countries. It has become regarded all too often as an optional expense, increasingly to be devolved to the individual or the “community”, where the financial resources required for work with advanced technology are not available. Even now in 2020, this health care deficit sounds familiar. I argued then
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