The new Commonwealth Fund report in comparative healthcare in 11 developed countries makes for sober reading. In the last two surveys the UK came top. It does not anymore. It now ranks fourth:
What is more m the gap between the U.K. and best performing counties is not small.
Note, however, how bad the US performance is. The preferred alternative of the U.K. right wing is dire in almost every way.
What is significant is the ranking compared to spending:
The NHS has little spent on it, but delivers above average performance for that, still. This is highlighted in this chart:
But the simple fact is that although matters have improved we still have too many avoidable deaths in the U.K., which has only got worse during Covid. We're not as bad as the USA, but that is nothing to shout about.
So what to conclude? First, the NHS remains good at very many levels.
Second, it is not as good as it was. A decade of underfunding is now showing.
Third, we are paying a price in health care outcomes for not spending enough on healthcare. The absence of slack in our system; the absence of a culture of caring in government and the failure to act in preventative healthcare, so apparent during the Covid crisis, all impose a considerable cost on the U.K.
And, quietly unspoken behind all this is the fact that the U.K. has pockets of dense poverty and pervasive inequality throughout the country which in reality denies access to healthcare. That may be because people cannot afford time off to attend a surgery. But it also impacts through many aspects of lifestyle, including diet as well as decent housing. Fuel poverty is another issue: people do not die of flu in the U.K. any more than they do elsewhere, which is almost not at all. They die from pneumonia, most of it linked to poorly heated houses. This is the scandal behind this data.
Covid has revealed the underfunding of the NHS, as well as government refusal to do anything about it. But the bigger issue is that we tolerate poverty in the U.K. in a wholly unacceptable way, condemning many to poor health and early death. Government indifference to that is now beginning to show in the data. The Labour investment in the NHS has worn off. What is left is a sorry shadow of what we need.
It would be really good to have new commitments to the NHS, and the commitment to fund them. Investment in health care by government is known to have a rate of return well in excess of the sums spent. Why won't this government spend in the NHS in that case?
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
My view is always the same with any Government service that is de-funded.
It’s market making for the private sector. That’s all.
Is the Commonwealth Fund aware there are four N.H.S bodies operating in the U.K?
Yes
It allows for such things
Hi Richard bot sure if your aware but the Health and care act currently on its second reading in parliament is about to end the NHS as we know it and and allow US private health care companies run what’s left of the NHS
It has had no coverage in the media
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/ournhs/protestors-and-doctors-union-call-on-mps-to-block-new-english-health-bill/
I know
Hence one of the reasons for making the comment in the post that I did
“Why won’t this government spend in the NHS [given the high rates of return this spending generates]?”
I know its’s a rhetorical question and the answer is well known, but sometimes it needs to be repeated almost ad nauseam. It’s because the corporate capitalists, the high net worth individuals, the hedge funds, the private equity vultures, the vampire squids and the disaster capitalists – particularly those among them who are Conservative party donors – can’t monetise and capture the lion’s share of these returns in the short term.
They are too greedy and short-sighted to see that healthy citizens are productive and happy citizens who will perform more economic activity that will make the pie bigger for everyone.
Also, voters persist in voting for the very party which is indifferent to poverty and poor funding and which is ideologically hostile to the NHS. Labour has noticed this and is making no effort (again) to oppose this damaging Tory bill. How to get “the People” off their smug, anti social democratic, flag wavingt butts and fighting for, literally, their lives?
Will there be a tipping point that makes the majority realise what is going on and they turn against
the (alleged) govt and what will that tipping point be?
Occasionally, I see rays of hope but it’s still dwarfed by many dark clouds.
Craig
P.S. And it’s raining today
I so agree that “healthy citizens are productive and happy citizens who will perform more economic activity that will make the pie bigger for everyone.”
I wonder could it therefore be argued that government healthcare expenditure is actually deflationary?
Q. It would be really good to have new commitments to the NHS, and the commitment to fund them. Investment in health care by government is known to have a rate of return well in excess of the sums spent. Why won’t this government spend in the NHS in that case?
A. The Treasury regards spending on healthcare as consumption not investment and a waste of money. Doctors dont want a better NHS as it would undermine private medicine , which thrives on the inadequacies of the NHS, from which many obtain the majority of their earnings. The government listen too much to the Treasury and doctors. The rest of us are too intimidated to do anything about it. The moral of the story is that the Treasury and doctors do not know best.
The doctor point us simply wrong
Most doctors do not now have private earnings
We have to do better than that – there are exceptions of course, but don’t slight them all
So – the big question – how did it go in Parliament last night debating the Bill?
I’m struggling to find out.
‘I so agree that “healthy citizens are productive and happy citizens who will perform more economic activity that will make the pie bigger for everyone.”’
But who said that those benefiting at present want to make the pie bigger for everyone? During Covid there has been a continuation of the production of sickness as a cash cow for the few – people on maintenance doses of medications for life seem to be the lifeblood of the pharma companies. Why else have they promoted vaccines at the expense of treatments? Especially repurposed drug treatments which have been all but outlawed? Because they know that there is a long term need for annual vaccine boosters in a mutating virus as unfortunately, a partially vaccinated population pressures the virus to mutate more.
However, there does seem to be a lot of murmuring about the likelihood of “riots.” Presumably this means that there are signs of people losing faith in the current trend of low wages, low investment, the punitive benefits system, cheap unhealthy food, etc that you describe.