Financial incentives could be the key to reducing obesity and smoking, says a UK expert.
Government adviser Professor Julian Le Grand, chairman of Health England, which advises government on public health, has issued a report proposing that more NHS Trusts should offer cash vouchers as an incentive to people to adopt healthier lifestyles.
Professor Le Grand said vouchers could be exchanged for grocery shopping or gym membership.
In the paper: "Incentives for Prevention", the professor from the London School of Economics says the strategies that do well include: central government support via matching grants to commissioners who fund health promoting or disease prevention programmes, direct payments or other subsidies to individuals to engage in health promoting activities and taxes on unhealthy behaviours.
"One of the main problems that face both individuals and the government or other agencies tasked with improving the health of those individuals is that the costs of most unhealthy activities impact in the future, whereas the benefits from them occur in the present. Policies have to be developed either that bring some of the costs from unhealthy activities (or the benefits from healthy ones) back from the future, or that reduce some of the benefits from unhealthy activities (or reduce the costs of healthy ones) in the present."
A number of trusts are already running pilot schemes to incentivise patients - these include a project in Dundee in which smokers are offered £12.50 per week to spend on food if they go a week without smoking.
In Birmingham a scheme enables participants who pursue healthy activities to receive points redeemable against tickets to sporting events and shopping vouchers.
Both schemes are in their early days, but Professor Le Grand said he wanted to see other parts of the NHS following suit.
"There is growing evidence that financial incentives work. Smoking is the obvious place to start, but incentives could also be used to tackle obesity and drinking," he said.
"I think it is hard to put the case for offering people cash directly, but vouchers seems a logical way to go.
"These could be used to buy anything from food and gym membership to furniture. Anything that helps an individual's well-being."
The use of negative financial incentives, such as increasing the price of alcohol as put forward by England chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson earlier this week, was also gaining more support, said Professor Le Grand.
But he said the NHS could also learn from countries where positive financial incentives were being used.
His suggestion has received the backing of the Liberal Democrats but a spokesperson for the Department of Health said there was still no consensus about the effectiveness of incentive schemes but said NHS trusts are free to pursue such schemes if they wish.