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The NHS’s performance is “average at best” compared to peers abroad, similar to its “staggeringly low levels” of staff and clinical equipment, according to a comprehensive analysis of international data by a leading health think tank.
The King’s Fund revealed in a report published on Monday that the UK has fewer doctors and nurses per capita than most comparable countries, and relies more on internationally trained staff. Britain has only 3 doctors per 1,000 people, for example, while Greece has 6.3 doctors per 1,000 people.
The performance of Britain’s taxpayer-funded health system is under particular scrutiny as waiting lists for treatment are at record levels ahead of a general election that is likely to be a pivotal issue for voters.
The report found that the pandemic has affected waiting times for treatment more in the UK than in other countries. While many counterpart countries had growing waiting lists for knee, hip and cataract operations prior to Covid-19, the decline in the number of such procedures was “significantly more severe in the UK in the first year of the pandemic”.
The stresses of the pandemic have compounded the consequences of more than a decade of squeezed investment in staff, equipment and broader services, said Siva Anandaseva, senior analyst at King’s Fund and author of the report. He added: “This leaves the NHS performing mediocre at best, and the UK needs to do more to reduce the number of people dying prematurely from diseases such as heart disease and cancer.”
As the NHS reaches its 75th anniversary, it has stood out for removing most financial barriers to access to health care, but warned that it “lags behind its international cousins on some key indicators of a good health care system”.
The independent report, commissioned by the British Pharmaceutical Industry Association, compared the NHS with 18 similar higher-income countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Japan, Singapore and the US.
It showed that the UK had the lowest levels of life expectancy for men and women, with a particularly marked decline since the pandemic.
While the think tank stressed that life expectancy was determined by many more factors than healthcare, it found that the UK had higher levels of deaths from treatable diseases such as heart attack and stroke than the majority of comparable countries, and survival rates Alive below average. for many common cancers.
There have been suggestions by politicians and analysts that the taxpayer-funded model of the NHS should change – perhaps to the social insurance system used by many European countries. However, the King’s Fund said it found “little evidence that one country’s model for health financing and service delivery is inherently better than another”.
Working to improve the current health system while providing it with the “adequate resources, political support and long-term planning” that it desperately needs would give the NHS the best chance of delivering the “timely, high-quality care and outcomes it is capable of achieving”, the report concluded.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Sunday that the NHS was preparing to undergo the “largest expansion of training and workforce” in its history, acknowledging that “it will take time” for the waiting list for the universal health service to decrease.
Sunak told the BBC that the long-awaited NHS workforce plan, which is due to be published in the second half of this week, would reduce “reliance on overseas-trained healthcare professionals”.
He said the program “will also be based on the latest innovations and technologies,” but admitted that it could take between 5 and 15 years for the benefits of the plan to be felt.
The Department for Health and Social Care highlighted the King’s Fund report’s recognition that the NHS was “one of the most efficient managed healthcare systems”. It added that it was investing up to £14.1 billion to improve services and cut queues, one of the government’s top five priorities.
The DHSC also noted that a total of 108 new community diagnostic centers have delivered more than 4 million tests, scans and scans since July 2021, and said there were record numbers of staff working in the NHS.