NHS spend and effectiveness

The BBC have a story today about http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11984036 NHS cuts

Government spending plans will test the NHS and social services in England to the limit, according to a report by the Commons Health Select Committee.

A month or so ago there was a rather neat XKCD webcomic http://xkcd.com/808/ about how if craxy phenomenum worked the companies would be making loads of money out of it. One of the examples was that if homeopathy worked then healthcare costs would be reduced. I thought I'd have a look to see whether this was true, and using WolframAlpha http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=japan+life+expectancy I researched healthcare expenditure, life expectancy and to what degree the state funded homeopathy. Okay, that last bit was hard to find, but I did generate this neat graph showing state health expenditure per capita by life expectancy.

 

It effectively shows how much value for money the UK gets compared to other countries.

 

We can see that America get's well ripped off, spending more than twice as much than the UK, but with lower life expectancy. And Japan, well, they spend a wee bit less than the UK, but get a good three years on average more life than we do.

 

Anyhoo, I reckon that this graph show's we're getting crap value for money from the NHS. It doesn't say that NHS cuts will result is shorter life expectancy, just that other countries who spend the same amount are spending that money more effectively to prolong their citizen's lives.

 

Pleas from the NHS for that lives will be lost unless they get more money should be ignored.