NHS: This is what the extra funding has bought you
From Civitas: NHS Reform:
The highlighting is mine. The figures speak for themselves. 2.3 times the investment for negative to zero improvement.
- NHS expenditure in England has increased from £33 bn in 1996/97 to £76 bn in 2005/06. But has the service improved?
- Overall productivity. The Office for National Statistics estimated that from 1995 to 2003 productivity had increased between minus one and zero per cent.
- Waiting lists fell from 1,158,000 in 1997 to 857,000 in September 2004. But the National Audit Office found in 2001 that nine trusts had ‘inappropriately adjusted’ their lists and the Audit Commission founding 2003 that there was evidence of ‘deliberate misreporting’.
- Operations cancelled at the last minute for non-clinical reasons increased from 51,000 in 1997/98 to 66,000 in 2003/04.
- The NAO found in 2000 that the UK had the worst record in Europe with about 100,000 infections a year leading to 5,000 deaths. Deaths from MRSA increased fifteenfold from 1993 to 2002.
- Cancer and heart disease are the main causes of premature death. How does the NHS compare? A BMJ study ranked the UK 19th out of 19 countries on ‘mortality amenable to health care’.
- Cancer survival in England is poor. The Eurocare-3 study found that England had the lowest 5-year survival rate for lung cancer and was among the lowest for prostate cancer.
- The NAO found in 2003 that, out of ten countries, the UK had the highest, second highest and third highest rates of ischaemic heart disease, myocardial infarction and cerebro-vascular disease respectively.
- The OECD found in 2002 that fatalities within the first seven days of a stroke were about twice the average in other countries.
There is not much more I feel I need to add to this.
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