Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Anarchy in the UK's health care system
[Jeremy Laurance, "Increases in funding for NHS may not improve care," The Independent, 21 September 2004.]
More news from Britain that their system of socialized medicine is no model for the U.S. to follow:
Spending on the NHS is rising at least 50 percent faster than the number of patients being treated, a think-tank report said yesterday.
There was no way of telling if the extra cash is improving care for patients or disappearing down a black hole, the Office of Health Economics (OHE) said.
Studies of health care activity - the number of patients treated in hospitals - showed that on the most optimistic measure it had increased by almost 4 percent a year between 1999 and 2004. But spending had increased by between 6.1 percent and 7.3 percent.
"Health care activity has therefore not increased at a comparable rate to spending on the NHS," the OHE said. "This would seem to imply that the Government has not achieved value for money. Yet the simple answer is no one knows. NHS productivity, or value for money, is not being measured."
[Jeremy Laurance, "Increases in funding for NHS may not improve care," The Independent, 21 September 2004.]
More news from Britain that their system of socialized medicine is no model for the U.S. to follow:
Spending on the NHS is rising at least 50 percent faster than the number of patients being treated, a think-tank report said yesterday.
There was no way of telling if the extra cash is improving care for patients or disappearing down a black hole, the Office of Health Economics (OHE) said.
Studies of health care activity - the number of patients treated in hospitals - showed that on the most optimistic measure it had increased by almost 4 percent a year between 1999 and 2004. But spending had increased by between 6.1 percent and 7.3 percent.
"Health care activity has therefore not increased at a comparable rate to spending on the NHS," the OHE said. "This would seem to imply that the Government has not achieved value for money. Yet the simple answer is no one knows. NHS productivity, or value for money, is not being measured."
Comments:
Post a Comment
