The following is a health results oriented study of the British National Health System. It focuses on health outcomes for the population rather than the delivery of health services. It must be remembered that the British NHS is basically free. One would expect that with such a system there would be better overall outcomes.
Years of universal healthcare, rising health spending, cancer screening, immunization and anti-smoking laws have failed to stop Britain falling behind in reducing early death and disease, a study showed on Tuesday.
Researchers who compared Britain's health performance since 1990 with 14 European Union countries plus Australia, Canada, Norway and the United States said its pace of decline inpremature death was "persistently and significantly" behind the average - a finding they described as "startling"...
I read it all the way through and was surprised there were no tables. There is no way to tell who actually is doing the premature dying, where they live and their social conditions. Am I being a little picky here?
ReplyDeleteHowever, this was the second to last paragraph: "He said ministers should introduce tighter health policies such as plain packaging for cigarettes, a minimum price for alcohol, a ban on trans fats, improved control of hypertension and a greater focus on psychiatric disorders."
Well, guess what that means? Even though the nanny state couldn't fix it originally, they're going to do their level best to screw it up some more. Wouldn't you know.
The article goes on to say that it's men over 55 that are skewing the statistics toward the decline in health outcomes. Apparently the NHS is not making the needed effort to address that group with appropriate preventative measures. Men can be stubborn about seeing a doctor, but that is the challenge to the NHS to get them in for regular checkups if the NHS expects better outcomes.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if it has anything to do with having enough doctors practicing geriatric medicine. You are right in that older men don't like to go to the doctor, but if each feels unwelcome, then they're not going to go. This means that over time all the old people will die off by 65 or so, as expected. That is not a pleasant thought. Thank goodness the Monarch is a female. They actually let her go home from the hospital under her own steam. This is getting scary.
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