The tortoise and the hare.

Everyone is familiar with Aesop's fable of the tortoise and the hare. Although the hare was faster over short distances, it was the plodding tortoise which won the race. The recent history of policies and initiatives to address inequalities in health is littered with harebrained schemes, exchanging long-term effect for short-term display. Many of these schemes are conceived in mad March, when there is end of year money to spend. Like genetically-programmed crops, they disappear when the year is out. Deep End GPs describe the life cycle of many community initiatives which, by the time they get established and become useful, are already starting to wind down. In maintaining a list of local community resources, the continuing challenge is to keep up to date. Health check programmes are also in vogue and can process large numbers of people through the initial stages of risk assessment, but when most of the resource goes into the beginning of the process, is it a wonder that such programmes fizzle out? A frequent notion of initiatives …