I thought the comment that was made about over medication of patients, particularly the elderly, was spot on. I was medicated without explanation of the side effects after a heart attack and only recently did I investigate the drugs. Having done that I self-reduced my medication by 50% and monitored my blood pressure to make sure I wasn't doing the wrong thing. Guess what? Despite increasing my activity levels dramatically my blood pressure actually stayed the same, lowish, and I've not had any heart problems either. My GP wasn't happy, but she has had to admit that it doesn't seem to have caused any adverse reactions ...... yet.
I also think it's about time the NHS started to aggressively push prevention rather than cure, the cost of doing so would be recouped from the reduction in medication prescribed, and unfortunately wasted a great deal of the time. It's estimated that stock-piling of meds by patients and the throwing away of unopened, unused meds costs the NHS about £300,000,000.00 a year! That'd pay for an awful lot if health education.