Interesting report by the King's Fund.
"The King’s Fund is an independent charity working to improve health and care in England. We help to shape policy and practice through research and analysis; develop individuals, teams and organisations; promote understanding of the health and social care system; and bring people together to learn, share knowledge and debate. Our vision is that the best possible health and care is available to all."
The work for this project was commissioned by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI). This output was independently developed, researched and written by The King’s Fund. The ABPI has not been involved
in its development, research or creation and all views are the authors’ own.
To read the full report, How does the NHS compare to the health care systems of other countries?, please visit
www.kingsfund.org.uk/NHS-international-comparisonshttps://www.kingsfund.org.uk/sites/default/files/2023-06/how_NHS_%20compares_%20summary_2023.pdfOverview
• Comparing the health care systems of different countries can help politicians and policy‑makers assess how the UK health care system is performing and where it could improve.
• For our research, we reviewed the academic literature on previous attempts to compare health care systems, analysed quantitative data on health system performance, and interviewed experts in comparative health policy.
• We found the UK health care system has fewer key resources than its peers. It performs relatively well on some measures of efficiency but waiting times for common procedures were ‘middle-of-the-pack’ before the Covid-19 pandemic
and have deteriorated sharply since.
• The UK performs well on protecting people from some of the financial costs of ill health, but lags behind its peers on important health care outcomes, including life expectancy and deaths. The latter could have been avoided through timely
and effective health care, and public health and preventive services.
• There is little evidence that one particular ‘type’ of health care system or model of health care funding produces systematically better results than another. Countries predominantly try to achieve better health outcomes by improving their existing
model of health care, rather than by adopting a radically different mode
