The Zohan

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8692241.stm

NICE, which advises the NHS in England and Wales, believes they may help tackle obesity, smoking and drinking.

It described rewarding lifestyle changes as an "idea whose time has come" but wants to gather more evidence before a formal recommendation.

It is not the first time the body - the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence - has considered incentives. It has already backed rewards to encourage people off drugs.



I must be getting old and grumpy, is this a good idea do we have to bribe people to become more healthy and where does it stop?

Bram

Can I say I stopping drinking even though I am tee total or stop smoking if I never smoked. See you better being a sinner than sinless in this world.

Tell you what, can I have a rebate on my NI/tax instead please just for not bothering the NHS for anything in the last 40 years, I am taking a year off for each of my children and tonsilitus surgery when I was 17 oh and a cut to my hand at work needed stiches. Seems fair for not smoking or doing anything self inflicted and being a burden on everybody.

douglasb

I heard this on the radio this morning and a few female smokers were interviewed about what it would take them to give up. One came up with the amazing statement that "Nah. It'd take something like a health scare to get me to stop".

So an increased risk of lung cancer and heart disease isn't a health scare?

I bet she voted Labour.

Leslie

I feel exactly the same way. When they make themselves ill they get the treatment for free. Why should they get bribes to make them look after themselves properly as they should be doing in the first place?

Just keep telling them that if they persist they are likely to get cancer and die!

Les