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New study shows UK among lowest spenders on health in EC

The UK continues to lag behind other EC countries in the proportion of national wealth it spends on healthcare, according to the latest edition of the Compendium of Health Statistics, published by the Office of Health Economics.

In comparison with its European partners, health spending in the UK has fallen behind since the 1960s. In 1949, 3.5 per cent of the GDP was spent on the NHS. In 1990, this had grown to 5.2 per cent. But figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reveal that the UK spends £582 per capita on health services, one of the lowest figures in Europe.

Nonetheless, the workforce of the NHS has doubled in the past 30 years, says the OHE report. The 1974 reorganisation of the health service, with the transfer of staff from local authorities and the Department of Education, was an inportant contributory factor, along with the fall in the nurses’ basic week and the overall expansion of service levels.

The report also shows how different groups of NHS staff expanded at very different rates during the 1980s. While administrative and clerical staff increased by 26 per cent, and medical and dental staff by 27 per cent, the numbers of nursing staff grew by only one per cent, and have recently fallen.

Though lip-service is frequently paid to the need to develop primary care in the NHS, the OHE’s figures show that spending on family health services fell from 33 per cent of the health service budget in 1949 to 24 per cent in 1990.