Breast Is Best

I am pretty sceptical about health incentives which pay people for doing things which are clearly to their own personal benefit - such as giving up smoking.

Because smokers already get a great deal of help with free nicotine patches and suchlike.

So why when they receive an immediate financial gain when they stop buying fags - at £7.00 a pack - does anyone feel the need to provide smokers with free money when a twenty a day smoker would save themselves £50 a week?

Sounds more than a bit bonkers, if you ask me.

As does the news reported yesterday of a trial scheme in England which will pay mothers £200 in shopping vouchers, as a financial incentive - if they agree to breast feed their babies.

Now the benefits of breast feeding are so well known that even I understand them.

So why would a mother require an extra financial inducement to do something that is so obviously in the best interests of her newborn child - and remains free at the time of use in the best traditions of the NHS.

To my mind there comes a point when people have got to do the right thing for the right reasons because trying to get them to do the right thing for the wrong reasons - is never going to work.