Spending on UK health care is increasing faster than other public spending

Spending on health in the United Kingdom is rising at a much faster rate than spending on the other public services, says the Office of Health Economics, an organisation largely funded by the UK drug industry to provide independent research on health care.

Figure 1.

The report says that in the 2001-2 financial year the NHS, after several years of growth, received 17% of total public spending, the highest proportion of public spending that it has received since its inception in 1948. In 2001-2 education took 14%, but social security still took the largest share, at 33%.

Although UK spending on health as a proportion of gross domestic product is still lagging behind that of other European countries, the report shows that by 2008, it will be only 0.2% lower than it is in France. This is in contrast to 1997, when France's spending as a proportion of GDP was almost 3% higher than that of the United Kingdom: 9.4%, compared with 6.8%.

The report also says that overall male mortality in England and Wales may be better than in France for the first time in 30 years. In 1997 the age standardised male mortality in England and Wales was higher than in France: 878 deaths per 100 000, compared with 855 in France. But male mortality in England and Wales fell in the 1990s at a rate of 14% a year, compared with 11% in France, with the result that by last year the rate could be better in England and Wales than in France.

Similarly, whereas France's male mortality from lung cancer increased during 1990-9, the United Kingdom's rate decreased. Death rates in the United Kingdom fell by an average of 28%, compared with a 1% increase in France. UK female mortality from lung cancer continued to fall at a substantially lower rate than male mortality, with an average reduction of only 6% between 1990 and 1999. France, however, has seen a 51% increase and Germany a 29% increase over the same time period.

The figures also show that the incidence of death from breast cancer in women fell by 24% in England and Wales, 15% in Scotland, and 18% in Northern Ireland during 1990-9.

The government's comprehensive spending review, published in September 2002, allocated a steady increase in spending to the NHS. Spending on health is planned to rise from £65.4bn ($109bn; €95bn) in 2002-03 to £105.6bn in 2007-8, an average year on year real growth of around 7.4%.