Scotland staying in the EU?

ashenfie

Your're comparing apples to turnips.
£1,300 for an angiogram vs £900 for a CT scan. And as noted peviously, cost of £2,000 for a private angiogram. The staggering high NHS cost is staggeringly lower than the private one...
So why mention it as an example of possible cost savings...

doug56hl

The CT scan that you said is not available in Scotland? I work with an India based company so know the private medical costs and know it lower than the UK.

While many have been in the UK for 10 years plus they all have return to India to have their children. They would rather pay than take the risk of using an over stretched service. Further they can afford the service, something in the UK they would struggle.

I also travel to London every day and talk a doctor who is a BMA adviser, so I know about cost and issues. The good and bad which no MP Scottish or English will know.

Trollslayer

What? That the UK spent less than other comparable countries between 1980 and 2012?
Try giving some data to show what I said is untrue...
Now perhaps, depending on how you look at the figures. But didn't use to.
As that link states "the UK actually spent above the EU-15 and OECD averages – as a percentage of GDP – in 2014".

Up until 2012 (8.5%) the UK had the lowest spend out of 11 listed countries (G7/G10/G12) as a percentage of GDP except as I mentioned previously a couple of years when New Zealand was lower. In 1991 UK spent 5.5% rising to 8.7% in 2009. Over that same period France was spending 8.2% rising to 10.8%. Decades of chronic underfunding of the NHS hardly surprisingly leads to some worse healthcare metrics vs the higher spending countries.
Look at the interactive chart at Mirror, Mirror 2017: International Comparison Reflects Flaws and Opportunities for Better U.S. Health Care

In 2013 the UK was at 8.5%, lower than the OECD average of 8.9% of GDP. Figure 2
https://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/Country-Note-SWEDEN-OECD-Health-Statistics-2015.pdf
or the dataset the graphs are based on Health expenditure and financing

By 2017 UK has risen to 9.6%, average estimated OECD was 9%
Health expenditure as a share of GDP, 2016 (or nearest year) | READ online

Health expenditure has grown to a 9.9% share of GDP in 2015, which is at the EU average,
United Kingdom: Country Health Profile 2017 | READ online

We still spend less than countries such as France and Sweden, but a similar amount to Spain and Portugal, and we are not far behind countries such as Austria and Belgium. Measured by health spending per person, however, the UK is a little below average, so that money is being spread more thinly. Source: same link as you gave.

UK is slightly above the EU-14 unweighted average since 2014 9.9% vs 9.7%, but below the EU-14 weighted average 9.9% vs 10.3%. Source: same link as you gave.

doug56hl

You have to be very careful when using statistics and/or data plus there will be a lot behind the numbers so it is extremely difficult to get a true picture of what is happening.

doug56hl

I mentioned an open MRI scanner not a CT scan. Closed MRI scanners are available but don't suit the 5-10% of the population with severe claustrophobia or too obese to fit into them. As I mentioned previously; in Scotland, like in most (all?) of England, the NHS does not have them but will, if necessary, fund use of private facilities.

Yes, Indian private medical costs may be lower than UK private medical costs but both, unlike the NHS, are not free to the patient. Your collegues can afford the private Indian medical costs plus air fares but would struggle to afford the free NHS service...
MP's have researchers, access to parliamentary information/research, Department of Health and Social care information, even BMA advisors. Some Mps are/were doctors themselves. But this one BMA advisor knows more than any MP can.
Yeah, right...

Nine doctors are elected as MPs

MP works 28 hours a week as doctor

Trollslayer

I did give the data.

Your point on 1980 to 2008/2012 was a separate point. You said "It is also" and then made that point. I didn't quote that or say it was untrue.

Rasczak

Agreed, which is why I also linked to OECD themselves rather than just others comments on OECD reports and data. The main problem with the data is the change from 2013 onwards to include social care costs which the UK didn't report prior to that date (like a lot of other countries). This also co-incides with the large jump in UK health spend.

For the UK this gives the appearance that NHS spending has gone up whereas now around 1.1% GDP health care costs according to the OECD are for "long term care (health)" in "residential long term care facilities". This data includes the social care costs for dementia where in many cases the patient has to fund their long term care themselves. I'm not saying that's all it covers but will be a considerable chunk of it.

Social care is the majority of care that people with dementia receive.....Someone with dementia may require one to one support with nearly every aspect of life either at home with a homecare worker or in a care home. This is classed as social care, rather than care provided free on the NHS.
Dementia tax

The overall economic impact of dementia in the UK is £26.3 billion, working out at an
average annual cost of £32,250 per person.
• £4.3 billion is spent on healthcare costs, of which around £85 million is spent on diagnosis.
• £10.3 billion is spent on social care for people with dementia in the UK.
• Social care is either publicly funded (£4.5 billion; 17.2% of the overall total cost of
dementia) or privately funded (£5.8 billion; 22.9% of the total).
https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/sites/default/files/migrate/downloads/dementia_uk_update.pdf

So even the higher figures from 2013 onwards for the UK may not mean what we think they mean in terms of increased NHS funding. As the above 2014 report notes £5.8 billion of the UK social care costs included in the % GDP health care spending reported by the OECD for that year were privately funded.

doug56hl

There are a lot of care homes in this area and another was announced about a month ago.
Also the load on the GPs is very high because of this.

doug56hl

The OECD came up with a fair and comparable method of measuring health spending to account for the big differences between nations in what they did and didn't class as health spending.

That's not a problem. The previous methods of measuring health spending were the problem, as they unfairly showed our spending as less.

doug56hl

Early signs that the Labour vote in the EU elections has collapsed in Scotland in favour of the SNP, Lib Dems and Scottish Greens.