UK and the Euro Health Consumer Index

A recent report by the European Health Consumer Index puts the UK NHS a lowly 14th out of 33 European countries for the provision of health services. So why is that ?.

Of the 33 countries in the Euro Zone The Netherlands is the far outright leader in the provision of health care but the UK is stubbornly low at just 14th despite the fact that the Labour government have poured in almost £110 million over the past 10 years into the National Health Service (NHS).

The overall UK score is dragged down by long waiting times still and uneven quality performance – in that you won’t get the same level of care in every hospital around the country.

UK on a par with new EU entrants

Here are the results of the 5th Euro health consumer index from 2009 published in October 2009:

  • Netherlands 863 (out of 1,000 points)
  • Denmark 819
  • Iceland 811
  • Austria 795
  • Switzerland 788
  • Germany 787
  • France 778
  • Luxembourg 777
  • Sweden 762
  • Norway 740
  • Belgium 732
  • Finland 721
  • Ireland 701
  • United Kingdom 682
  • Italy 671
  • Slovenia 668
  • Czech Republic 667
  • Estonia 638
  • Cyprus 637
  • Hungary 633
  • Portugal 632
  • Spain 630
  • Croatia 627
  • Greece 600
  • FYR Macedonia 576
  • Poland 565
  • Malta 565
  • Slovakia 560
  • Lithuania 546
  • Albania 542
  • Latvia 512
  • Romania 489
  • Bulgaria 448

The UK’s waiting times are still an issue

The absolute lowest score for the UK for all European countries was for waiting times where they scored just 80 points – the same as for Portugal. The best place was Switzerland. One area where the UK scored well was with the provision of pharmaceuticalswith many chemists open late around the UK this showed through in these results.

However even with these low scores the UK performance in this research is actually improving over the past 5 years so perhaps more improvements will come through.

Private health insurance versus the NHS

This survey really comes as no surprise to those people who already have private health insurance cover because the main benefit is that you get seen almost immediately and at a hospital of your choice (whether that be private or NHS funded).

It is a shock to see that waiting times are still an issue after all the additional funding that has been poured into the NHS and that after all of that investment the people in the UK still do not rate the overall service of the NHS very highly and that it’s performing just above new EU entrants who simply don’t have that money to invest. However, if you look deeper into the analysis that has been provided the investment per person is not the highest among the member EU states despite what the politicians may say.

So the same old story continues and even if the UK score 100% of the marks available for averagewaiting times they would still only just rank in the top 10 so there is still much work to be done with the NHS not only in terms of real development but in the perception from the patients that they care for.

If you are worried by this information then it’s best to either speak to your doctor or local hospital as results vary greatly around the country so you may be near a hospital that tops the league. Alternatively it many just be time to investigate the possibility of investing in your own private health insurance policy.