Appearing on BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast, Dr Phillip Lee clarified his position on healthcare reform. Following his speech to the IEA, Dr Lee argued that the locus of responsibility in terms of healthcare must shift from the government to the individual to some degree.His comments come in the context of a debate about the need to cut government spending and how this can be achieved whilst protecting the NHS so the truly vulnerable are unaffected. By 2025 diabetes, for example, will account for 20% of the NHS budget. Many cases of diabetes are avoidable, yet people are leading unhealthy lifestyles that make them dependent on the NHS. Over the period of a decade, reforms could change the way that lifestyle inflicted disease and illnesses are paid for, with the patient bearing some of the financial burden. There has been a post-war shift due to the baby-boom and a disregard of traditional stoic attitudes to health and pain. The current system is unsustainable in the long term, Lee argued.