ABSTRACT
During the last century improving public health is credited with adding 25 years to the average life expectancy of populations in resource-rich countries. Contributing achievements include immunisation, motor vehicle safety, workplace safety, control of infectious disease, declines in deaths from heart disease and stroke, safer and healthier foods, healthier mothers and babies, family planning and the recognition of tobacco as a health hazard. At the same time the array of surgical, medical, diagnostic and remedial possibilities that can be offered to patients is well illustrated in the chapters of this book with many of the newer innovations developed, not just in the last century, but in the last 20–30 years. This has, in turn, led to greater specialisation. A combination of these three factors presents today’s healthcare with two big challenges: greater demand due to greater volumes of patients who are older and have more chronic diseases often requiring multidisciplinary care; and an increasing volume of treatment options often of increasing complexity and cost.
