I wonder how much of this is about putting out a political narrative that the reason that the NHS is struggling is because "it's the patients' fault" (and not a fundamental problem of inadequate funding).Blaming the patient is a more simplistic and superficially attractive excuse (for a government that perfers soundbites and accepts responsibility for nothing) than the fact that UK public health funding falls far behind other comparable developed countries (although this funding gap is partly explained by the relative efficiency NHS "free at the point of use" model, i.e. avoiding all the frictions and leakage of insurance companies, shareholder profits, payment systems, adminstration, etc. etc.).The UK falls behind France, Luxembourg, Australia, Ireland, Canada, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Norway, Switzerland and the US. https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htmUK public health spending 2021 was $4,466 per head. Netherlands $5,256. Germany $6,351. So if we spent the same as Germany (42% more) or even the Netherlands (17.6% more) then I expect that we could sort out most of the problems in the NHS relatively quickly.(Although UK ONS shows the UK spend to be considerably lower - £2,647 per head, or 8% of GDP, compared with France £3,307 (9.3%) or Germany £4,131 (9.9%) and the G7 average (distorted by the US £6,782 (13.9%) of £3,524 (9.9%). But either way, the fact is that the UK spends considerably less than comparable countries).What would an extra, say, 20%, wisely spent on the NHS do for treatments, waiting lists, recruitment etc.? I suspect that this would resolve most of the problems (once ramped up over a period of time in a managed way).This would require the overall amount of tax raised in the UK to increase from 33% to 35% of GDP.Would you be prepared to pay 6% more in taxes (overall - including indirect, e.g corporation tax, VAT, etc. etc) for a properly funded NHS? That's about 1.2p on the basic rate of income tax, 2.4p on the higher rate, or 1p on the rate of corporation tax. Around £233 more tax a year for someone on the mean average salary for all workers in the UK of £31,447.Or put another way, about an additional £8 bn a year (for England). Or a quarter of the missing £32 billion that dissappeared on "track and trace".A junior doctor’s salary in the UK ranges between $29,000 to $40,000. In Ireland, the same doctor earns between €43,000 to €51,000 (and the dollar and Euro now almost the same). Nurse's average salary Ireland = £40,579. UK = £33,305. And the UK has a significantly higher cost of living than most other European countries.The US spend per head (public health / compulsory insurance) is $10,052 (more than two and a quarter times the UK), and total spend (i.e. including directly privately funded) is $12,318 (compared with $5,468 UK). And yet this is the model (perhaps the most inefficient in the World - causing 62.1% of all personal bankruptcies in the US) that many in the Conservative party are advocating. Yet another example of political dogma (or promotion of vested in interests) over evidence based policy making.
T P Howell ● 1504d