Recent years have seen a proliferation of health charities in the UK, raising awareness and funds - but also contributing to impossible demands on the NHS. Is too much self-diagnosis creating unnecessary anxiety, and even leading to harmful interventions? How sick are we really?&nbsp;In this week’s long read, the&nbsp;New Statesman’s medical editor Dr Phil Whitaker examines the unintended consequences of the boom in awareness campaigns, drawing on several personal stories.&nbsp;What have been the impacts of post-pandemic NHS initiatives such as “Help Us Help You”, or the nationwide prompt to see a GP simply if something&nbsp;<a href="https://www.england.nhs.uk/2022/03/celebrities-join-forces-with-the-nhs-to-encourage-cancer-checks/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">doesn’t “feel right”</a>?&nbsp;Whitaker looks at the economic forces at work: the pharmaceutical companies who benefit and the rise of the preventative health industry, with its high-street blood tests and liquid biopsies. We ignore these shifts at our peril, he argues: if the NHS is to survive we need to understand our health, and our health services, better.&nbsp;This article originally appeared in the 16 June edition of the&nbsp;New Statesman. You can read the text version&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/health/2023/06/sick-society-nhs-cancer" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>.&nbsp;Phil Whitaker’s new book, “What is a Doctor?”, will be published by Canongate in July.&nbsp;Written by Phil Whitaker and read by Adrian Bradley.&nbsp;If you enjoyed listening to this episode, you might also enjoy&nbsp;<a href="https://shows.acast.com/audio-long-reads-from-the-new-statesman/episodes/a-brief-history-of-woke-how-one-word-fuelled-the-culture-war" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">A brief history of woke: how one little word fuelled the culture wars</a>.&nbsp;<hr> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.

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The risky rise of medical self-diagnosis

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