I've moved this from a discussion started here.
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I'm basing my position on the available evidence. Did you read my links?
I'm tired of people bashing the NHS. It does have problems, including constant govt meddling, but on the whole it does a great job with what it has. (I have no connection to the NHS btw, other than when I've broken myself)
Firstly, where do you get your figures. The NHS has never, ever had 11% of GDP. The absolute highest it has ever been is 9%, and that was because the economy shrunk faster than NHS spending recently. It's currently 8-8.5%. Here's another link.
Secondly, how could 280k staff possibly provide adequate care for 480k beds?
Thirdly, beds numbers alone are very poor value for money, that's why bed numbers have dropped. Care is better provided in other ways, by say providing staff to care for them instead of a bed to lie in whilst they're being ignored.
Fourthly, as a result of public demand the nhs does a lot, lot more than when it was founded 60 years ago, (eg. average life expectancy has gone from 71 to 81 years, massive increase in the prevalence of cancer etc.) so it needs more funding and more staff to do that.
Actually I did say it was efficient:
Compared to every other western economy. Again, read my links and use google. I'm happy to provide more sources if you like. Otherwise look at the picture below.
What's your source for the increase in management?
I would agree about the govt micro-management and political footballing though, that needs to stop. How can a system improve when it's constantly being meddled with along idealogical rather than evidence based lines from all sides.
You mean like the American private health care system that costs more than double per patient than the NHS and overall provides worse outcomes?
From The Economist and the study below:
"What the NHS is good at is providing cost-efficient care. It spends $3,405 per person per annum, less than half America's outlay of $8,508."
Again, we get very good healthcare outcomes for the money we spend. A report by The Commonwealth Health fund which was comparing the US system to other western countries, not funded or biased to the NHS. Click here
If you don't want to follow the link then just look at this table. Note that the Healthy Lives metric includes lifestyle and dietary factors and is about behaviour outside of the healthcare system:
Also note that our current govt has broken up the NHS into smaller, competing units so it will now be less co-ordinated and more expensive than what is shown above.
Feel free to challenge/debate what I've written.
:S ok, why would this be better?
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I'm basing my position on the available evidence. Did you read my links?
I'm tired of people bashing the NHS. It does have problems, including constant govt meddling, but on the whole it does a great job with what it has. (I have no connection to the NHS btw, other than when I've broken myself)
Firstly, where do you get your figures. The NHS has never, ever had 11% of GDP. The absolute highest it has ever been is 9%, and that was because the economy shrunk faster than NHS spending recently. It's currently 8-8.5%. Here's another link.
Secondly, how could 280k staff possibly provide adequate care for 480k beds?
Thirdly, beds numbers alone are very poor value for money, that's why bed numbers have dropped. Care is better provided in other ways, by say providing staff to care for them instead of a bed to lie in whilst they're being ignored.
Fourthly, as a result of public demand the nhs does a lot, lot more than when it was founded 60 years ago, (eg. average life expectancy has gone from 71 to 81 years, massive increase in the prevalence of cancer etc.) so it needs more funding and more staff to do that.
Actually I did say it was efficient:
Compared to every other western economy. Again, read my links and use google. I'm happy to provide more sources if you like. Otherwise look at the picture below.
What's your source for the increase in management?
I would agree about the govt micro-management and political footballing though, that needs to stop. How can a system improve when it's constantly being meddled with along idealogical rather than evidence based lines from all sides.
You mean like the American private health care system that costs more than double per patient than the NHS and overall provides worse outcomes?
From The Economist and the study below:
"What the NHS is good at is providing cost-efficient care. It spends $3,405 per person per annum, less than half America's outlay of $8,508."
Again, we get very good healthcare outcomes for the money we spend. A report by The Commonwealth Health fund which was comparing the US system to other western countries, not funded or biased to the NHS. Click here
If you don't want to follow the link then just look at this table. Note that the Healthy Lives metric includes lifestyle and dietary factors and is about behaviour outside of the healthcare system:
Also note that our current govt has broken up the NHS into smaller, competing units so it will now be less co-ordinated and more expensive than what is shown above.
Feel free to challenge/debate what I've written.
:S ok, why would this be better?
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