UK Falls Further Down European Health League Despite Rise in Funding

Britain's National Health Service remains a "mediocre" provider of health care, performing much less well than almost all of the UK's peers in western Europe, according to a European survey.

The index of European health services, issued yesterday in Brussels by Health Consumer Powerhouse, found Britain had slid further down the European league table over the past year despite the investment in the NHS under New labor. Of 29 countries assessed, the EU's 27 plus Norway and Switzerland, Britain came 17th.

Apart from Italy, all the countries ranked worse than Britain were much poorer, mainly from eastern Europe. Apart from Italy and Portugal, all the countries of western Europe and Scandinavia scored much higher than Britain. The same survey last year put Britain 15th.

"Patients in the UK have the right to expect more. Despite substantial funding increases, the UK still is a mediocre overall performer," said Anje Björnberg, director of Health Consumer Powerhouse.

Austria came top of the survey, followed by The Netherlands and France. New and poorer EU member states such as Estonia, the Czech Republic and Cyprus were ranked higher than Britain.

The analysis criticized Britain for long waiting times, the regional variations in supply of health care, the low rates of five-year cancer survival, and the scale of MRSA infection in NHS hospitals.

The survey looked at five areas of health care - waiting times for common treatments, results of treatment, access to medicines, patients' rights and information, and "generosity of the system". Britain scored well on patients' rights, but poorly everywhere else.

Britain and Germany represent the two fundamental systems of public health care in Europe, with the British "Beveridge" system unifying funding and provision, while the German "Bismarck" system is based around a plethora of competing insurance organizations independent of health service suppliers. The survey found that the German model is delivering better results.

"It is very hard to avoid noticing that the top five countries all have dedicated Bismarckian health care systems," the report said. "While not at all arguing that the Bismarck-type health care systems are in every way superior, it seems that for total customer value, the Bismarck model runs rings around Beveridge."

1 Austria

2 Netherlands

3 France

4 Switzerland

5 Germany

6 Sweden

7 Norway

8 Finland

9 Denmark

10 Belgium

11 Luxembourg

12 Estonia

13 Cyprus

14 Spain

15 Czech Republic

16 Ireland

17 UK

18 Italy

19 Portugal

20 Slovenia

21 Greece

22 Malta

23 Slovakia

24 Hungary

25 Romania

26 Lithuania

27 Poland

28 Bulgaria

29 Latvia

Source: Health Consumer Powerhouse