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Britain 'poor man' of EU healthBy: Unknown A report by the Office of Health Economics (OHE) revealed that the UK spends £970 per person on health - compared to 1,400 in France and £1,700 in Germany. And a review of 30 developed countries revealed that globally only Mexico, Turkey, Korea, Ireland and Luxembourg spends less than we do on health provisions. Prime Minister Tony Blair has promised to bring spending on the NHS up
to the European average, but the report warns that will be a "painful
process."
Key commitments
And research by the OHE said that delivering key commitments such as
hiring an extra 20,000 nurses and 2,000 GPs by 2005 would be
"extremely hard."
The Department of Health has said it was on target to get 8% of gross
domestic product (GDP) by 2006.
It has risen from 6.8% in 1999 to 7.1% last year.
But the report reveals that even if Britain reaches the government
targets of 8% that it will still be lagging behind, because average
European health spending is currently 9.2% of GDP. Jon Sussex, the associate director of the OHE, a health research centre
funded by the pharmaceutical industry, said Britain could definitely claim
its place among the poor health providers in Europe.
"We are not the poorest man in Europe, but we are in the lower
half.
"There has been a big commitment of taxpayers' money and that it
starting to bear fruit but, on the question of will we catch up to the
position of being average, it looks like it will be even more painful for
the government to do even this much."
Meeting targets
A spokesman for the Department of Health stressed they were making
progress in meeting targets.
"There are lots of different ways to calculate average EU
expenditure on health.
"We have always said we will work to reach 8% and we are on course
to reach this."
He added that the average rate of real growth in NHS spending was set
in the last budget at 6.3% until 2003/4 and that when this was combined
with an average growth of 3% over the past few decades that it represented
"the largest sustained levels of real growth in the history of the
NHS."
The British Medical Association said the shocking figures revealed the
growing gap in health spending across Europe.
A spokeswoman said: "The OHE statistics show that the government
is chasing a moving target on health spending.
"Clearly, we support the move to increase both absolute and
relative levels of investment in health care and the government is making
record sums available to the NHS over the next few years.
"The rising trend in other EU countries may reflect a higher cost
base.
"For patients and doctors, the test is seeing the new investment
arrive in front line services, with more staff, beds and equipment." |
