Quote:
Originally Posted by Neil
You are missing the point Graham. I did not say the NHS was bad just that it is badly managed.
Here are some interesting maths for you.
Population of the UK is approx 60 million
NHS budget for 2008 is £90 billion
90 billion / 60 million = £1500 per year per person in the UK.
£1500 / 12 months = £125
A quote for me on that zip code game to $315.88 which according to Google is £159 per month.
I agree you would pay more in the States for your health care but £35 per month is not that much more is it? Just think of all the waiting around we do waiting to be seen by consultants and how late all our appointments often are (due to poor management)
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These figures interested me so I did a bit of checking, according to the Office for National Statistics the number of people paying Income Tax in 2007 was 29.4 million.
The average, or median, earnings for the same year were £23,764.
£90billion divided by 29.4 million is £3,061 per tax-payer, per year, further divided by twelve is £255 per month.
But whichever way round you look at it the NHS is grossly inefficient and horrifically expensive and is in dire need of root and branch re-organisation. Merely chucking ever larger bundles of cash at it will not solve the endemic profligacy and waste and will not deliver a health care system that is responsive to the needs of it's users. It will not solve the "post-code lottery" differences in treatment and medication and it will not solve the problems inherent in an ageing customer base. Bigger is not always better, because along with the increase in infrastructure and staffing comes a consequent increase in the scale of problems and their solution. This is why it is proving so difficult to beat hospital acquired infections; large institutions respond more slowly than small ones.