The government published a strategy for improving the general health of the population at the beginning of 1998. The Green Paper - Our Healthier Nation - contained four broad targets. If they are met, they should save 15,000 lives a year:

• Heart disease and strokes: to reduce the number of deaths in people under 65 by a third by 2010. This would save about 8,000 lives a year.
• Cancers: to cut the number of deaths from all cancers in people under 65 by a fifth by 2010. This should save about 6,000 lives a year.
• Accidents: to reduce accidents in the home, on roads and at work by a fifth by 2010.
• Mental health: to cut the number of suicides and deaths by "undetermined" causes by a sixth by 2010. Another 800 lives a year would be saved.

The document also sets out how these targets might be met. To cut the number of deaths from heart disease and strokes, the government wants more people to give up smoking. It intends to raise tobacco prices and ban advertising. There will be a greater emphasis on safety campaigns to cut the number of accidents. Improved awareness of risk factors and more effective screening should impact on the number of cancer deaths.

Inequalities in health

When Frank Dobson, Secretary of State for Health, launched the Green Paper, he told the House of Commons : "Health in our country has generally improved over the years. But far too many people are still falling ill more often and dying sooner than they should."

He said there were huge inequalities in health and said: "Poor people are ill more often and die sooner, and that's the greatest inequality of them all: the inequality between the living and the dead."

Mr Dobson said tackling these health issues would involve a range of linked programmes, including measures on welfare-to-work, crime, housing and education, as well as on health itself.

Fewer targets

Mr Dobson has been criticised for dropping the very specific targets set out by the previous Conservative Government in the 1992 Health of the Nation White Paper. It demanded improvements in a number of additional areas including HIV-AIDS, sexual health, and eating and drinking habits, and smoking. But many criticised these targets for being unrealisable.

The Shadow Health Secretary John Maples said ministers had taken a step backwards by abandoning the 27 Tory targets: "If you don't have these sort of targets, there is nothing to aim at. How else will you know if the policy has been a success?" he asked.

The document unveiled by Frank Dobson in the House of Commons on February 5 covers England only. The Scottish Office launched its own Green Paper, entitled Towards a Healthier Scotland, on the same day.