Health services in Estonia, Israel and Austria provide safer care than Britain and the U.S., a report has revealed – with the U.K. failing to make the top 20. The Mail has more.
Researchers at the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London examined data on 38 developed countries.
The experts focused on four key patient safety indicators for their rankings: maternal mortality, treatable mortality, adverse effects of medical treatment and neonatal disorders.
This includes causes of death that can be mostly avoided through timely and effective healthcare, including screening and treatment, and medical blunders.
Norway finished top of the league table, followed by Sweden and South Korea, while the U.K. placed 21st and Mexico last.
The U.S. fell within the bottom six, according to the rankings.
The analysis suggests 17,356 lives could have been saved in the U.K. in 2019 if it had performed at the level of the top 10% of countries.
This would have meant 15,773 fewer deaths classified as treatable mortality, 776 fewer neonatal deaths, 27 fewer maternal deaths and 780 fewer deaths due to adverse effects of medical treatment.
Many others have survived poor care but have been left with avoidable physical or mental disabilities, which are not captured by this report, the authors note.
So much for the world-beating NHS, remarks the Mail.
Worth reading in full.
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The UK has become like any other failed state and system: the rulers just pronounce that everything is world-beating and world-leading.
The sole and real difference to those other failed states is that the majority of the population also still believes that and them.
Mass psychology textbooks will surely be written about that phenomenon and them.
It just needs a bit more money!
Kneel will sort it out.
Of course it doesn’t. It’s being engineered that way and suits the tribalist zealots who run it perfectly. If it ceased to be a socio-political engineering cult and became an efficient world beating successful healthcare organisation, where would their victimhood status come from?
The introduction of the NHS was an economic/tax thing, not a medical thing. There was nothing different about health care directly after the introduction of the NHS as compared with just before. The only difference was how it was paid for.
Most of the UK’s vast improvements in health care (as measured by age band death rates) was achieved prior to 1947. In many age groups the improvement in death rates actually slowed after the inception of the NHS. To be fair, in some cases the rate could not have continued to drop without reaching zero.
Dr Malcolm Kendrick has written an interesting multi-part article about “What’s wrong with the NHS?“. His perspective as a medical doctor and GP is informative and his style is entertaining.
I do like charts/graphs. A picture speaks a thousand words.
Most people fail to realise that sanitation is the game changer, not vaccines and not modern health care. We owe thanks to plumbers and engineers, rather than doctors for this.
So true.
Yep. Joseph Bazalgette and many others.
And these guys in Chicago! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago
And free market capitalism which provides the wealth to afford sanitation, better housing, better nutrition.
Sanitation and a decent diet.
1911 National Insurance Act, took health insurance away from the private sector (75% of the population had private insurance beforehand) and nationalised it. It required an employee contribution, employer contribution and top-up from general taxation – just like now.
This was no benefit to the people, just the political class, as it took dispersement of funding for healthcare away from the control of the citizenry and placed it in the hands of the civil service.
Insurance was previously mostly via mutuals, friendly societies, community schemes, trades union schemes.
In 1948 the provision of healthcare was nationalised, its funding remained more or less the same.
All the Govt did in 1911 and 1948 was take insurance and provision away from the private sector into the public sector – with predictable results.
The NHS is a joke. But even then, it still placed above the USA in the league tables (a pitifully low bar to clear, of course). And the ones at the top are single-payer Medicare for all systems that have not (yet) been sabotaged by austerity.
No they are not single-payer.
And France is below the UK. I lived in France until two years ago for 20 years and I can affirm its health system (not single payer and over 50% private provider) is far superior to the NHS.
So that survey is not to be taken seriously.
The Nordic countries technically follow the Beveridge Model, but that’s close enough:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-payer_healthcare
After I read ‘Imperial College’ and ‘The experts’ I couldn’t go on reading… laughing too hard.
As soon as I see “Imperial College” I automatically conclude – load of bollox then.
It is the inexcorable logic of our system every year it will get worse. I think the saddest thing is those who join a profession because they want to make a difference and yet are stifled by distant forces. This is the reality of our age and it won’t be long before it is known and ultimately remedied.
I bet we’re world-leading when it comes to providing “free” treatment for freeloaders who have never paid a penny into the system though ….. both those who fly in and “suddenly” discover they’re 7 months pregnant or need urgent medical treatment, and those who migrate here to take low-paid jobs or attend “university” and have their extended family in tow.
I’ve come to realise the NHS was set up to capture us as consumers of medical services and products just like any other big business. We were invited to allow our benevolent government and experts to take control of our health decisions from cradle to grave. It has lulled us into a position of dependency and corrupt, vested interests soon overcame any attempts at independent regulation. It is the cookoo in the nest as far as our nation is concerned and too many people are dependent on it for work, drugs and treatments which none of us really need. I’m lucky in that I’ve been sceptical of NHS treatments for a long time and don’t rely on them but I realise a lot of sceptics do. The answer is to do your own due diligence for instance by reading Malcolm Kendrick’s excellent “The Clot Thickens”.
Socialized medicin, like any socialized endeavor, always ends up being mediocre. Look at the former communist Soviet countries. Look at Cuba today. These countries have access to very poor levels of medical care. The elites have access to better care. The most successful countries in medical outcomes have dual private and government funded systems. There needs to be incentives and accountability for humans to perform better. Total socialized systems have neither.