The NHS has come under increasing pressure in recent times due to increased demand for services and funding, and staff shortages – problems exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Chronic underinvestment within the UK’s National Health Service means Britons are likely to die of significant illness earlier than patients in other wealthy countries, according to a recent study.
The UK is “underperforming” compared to OECD countries in tackling diseases similar to cancer and heart disease, leading to higher-than-average rates of preventable and treatable mortality, according to a report published Monday by think tank King’s Fund Health.
Of the 19 countries surveyed, the UK lags behind most of its peers when it comes to life expectancy, although the report notes that that is a problem significantly influenced by aspects beyond the direct control of any healthcare system.
Researchers said Britain’s ‘below-average’ healthcare performance is due to ‘below-average’ investment in physical resources including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners and hospital beds, low levels of clinical staff and ‘heavy reliance’ on trained staff abroad .
The low pay of some groups of doctors and nurses – an issue that has led to months of protest within the NHS – has also been cited as a reason for the UK’s lack of competitiveness against other countries similar to Austria, Belgium and Germany.
75 years of the National Health Fund
The findings come because the UK celebrates the seventy fifth anniversary next month of the publicly funded NHS, which was established in 1948 by the post-war Labor government to make free healthcare accessible to all.
The NHS has come under increasing pressure in recent times due to increased demand for services and funding, and staff shortages – problems exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
A spokesperson for the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care told CNBC that the federal government is investing £14.1bn ($17.9bn) to improve services and shorten waiting lists. They added that “a record variety of staff were working within the NHS”.
The federal government is due to publish a staffing plan on Thursday to address the present staffing shortage in what Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Sunday could be “some of the essential announcements within the history of the NHS”.
He added that care delays, which at the moment are at a record high, were “because we had a pandemic.”
King’s Fund researchers said most of the issues identified within the report predate the Covid-19 pandemic. But they said the crisis had “contributed to a toxic cocktail of pressures” on the health service.
Amongst the brilliant spots, the report said the UK is doing “relatively well” on some measures of efficiency and government spending.
UK patients were also said to be getting relatively good protection from the possibly catastrophic costs of sick health, although this safety net was “disturbingly threadbare in some areas”.