The private sector - from pharmacies to supermarkets and food manufacturers - should play a bigger role in schemes to improve public health, the prime minister was told today.
Private sector marketing of foods could provide a model for government campaigns aimed at trying to make people adopt healthier lifestyles, according to a series of reports on improving the nation's health.
The reports have been prepared for Tony Blair by a range of interested parties, including the pharmaceutical industry, food retailers, thinktanks and public health experts.
The pharmaceutical chain Boots advocates public health campaigns adopting similar messages to its own marketing campaigns for medicines.
In its paper, Boots' head of corporate affairs, Peter Gibson, writes that people are more likely to buy treatments for minor ailments that "allow them to feel empowered and more in control of their health".
One example was the chain's "hayfever survival kit", which was "really just a way of packaging up advice and discounting the more effective treatments".
But Boots believes presentation of health messages is key to their success as the kit was viewed as "much more empowering" by consumers.
Mr Gibson added that advertising that offered consumers a positive result - such as reducing hair loss or the appearance of wrinkles - encouraged greater commitment to change their behaviour - ie buy a particular product.
His paper also questioned the role of family doctors in preventing ill health, as Boots' research had found 84% of people would not go to see their GP until they were seriously ill. He writes: "Therefore, what role for GPs in health promotion?"
In another paper - produced in association with Boots - David Taylor, professor of pharmaceutical and public health policy at the University of London, advocates an expanded role for the private and voluntary sectors.
He writes: "Individuals, charities, companies and the state should work together to identify common goals, and use their combined resources to achieve them."
The professor suggests that the state should relinquish providing some healthcare services in the home as it would be "better" for people if they obtained them from commercial providers.
He writes: "Walking to the shops' for food and medicines (and perhaps some social contact) may in many ways be better for health than using home delivery services."
Most of the reports, shared the view that the government's most effective means of improving public health was through regulation - such as the forthcoming ban on public smoking.
But local initiatives - either by community groups or retailers - were more likely to encourage people to change their behaviour as they were not regarded as nanny state schemes.
