The cost of sitting around in North Yorkshire

In a recent post - If it were a drug - I looked at the yawning chasm between public policy and the increasingly well established fact that raising basic levels of physical activity can have a dramatic impact on people's health.

Since April 2013 public health has become the responsibility of local authorities and in my case this means North Yorkshire County Council. So, I've had a look at the official statistics and done a few sums.

There are about 2.9 million people with Diabetes in the UK and the total cost is estimated to be about £23.7 billion. This suggests that the cost is about £8000 per patient per year.

A recent report estimates that at present only 24% of people between 40 and 79 in North Yorkshire take the recommended minimum amount of physical exercise (5 x 30 min sessions per week of slightly raised heart rate). 

If this was doubled to 50% then there would be 1160 fewer cases of Diabetes per year. 
This translates into an annual cost saving, for reductions in diabetes alone, of £9.3 million. 

It is also estimated that there would be 149 fewer deaths, 48 fewer emergency hospital admissions for Coronary Heart Disease, 29 fewer new cases of Breast Cancer and 21 fewer new cases of Colorectal Cancer. 

There are 1.4 million men and 900,000 women with Coronary Heart Disease in the UK . The total cost is estimated to be about £29 billion. This comes out at about £12,600 per year per patient. I presume that not all of the new cases would result in emergency admissions so the saving in North Yorkshire of doubling the rate of physical activity would be at least £600,000.

The average cost of treatment per case of Breast Cancer is estimated to be £7247.This means the saving on treatment alone, i.e not absenteeism and other social costs, would be about £210,000.

Since typical treatment costs per case of Colorectal Cancer are about £20,000 the saving on treatment alone would be of the order of £420,000. 

So, not including the costs associated with depression, anxiety and dementia - which are all significantly relieved by physical activity - or the costs associated with 149 premature deaths, the overall saving produced by doubling the number of 40 -79 year olds engaging in  the minimum recommended amount of physical activity is at least £10.5 million.

Since the population is just over 600,000 this comes out at about £17.50 per year per man, woman or child.

Let us hope that the resources made available come somewhere near reflecting these potential savings.