The Government’s NHS reforms are merely reorganising a failed model, when radical surgery is really required


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The Government is pressing ahead with another reorganisation of the National Health Service. It is unlikely this reordering of our essentially bureaucrat-driven model will set the world alight. Certainly there is not much chance of the NHS becoming the envy of the world.

We have seen real spending on health in the UK more than double in ten years. We now spend 10% of national income on healthcare. The old excuses about a lack of resources no longer hold water. There are no incentives for efficiency built into the system. It is not clear that this will change.

James Bartholomew in The Welfare State We’re In reported a study that suggested that the typical NHS hospital had more than four times as many support staff per nurse than a typical private hospital. This figure is difficult to verify but few employees or patients would be at all surprised to read this.

Read the rest of the article on the ConservativeHome website.

Philip Booth is Senior Academic Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs. He is also Director of the Vinson Centre and Professor of Economics at the University of Buckingham and Professor of Finance, Public Policy and Ethics at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham. He also holds the position of (interim) Director of Catholic Mission at St. Mary’s having previously been Director of Research and Public Engagement and Dean of the Faculty of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences. From 2002-2016, Philip was Academic and Research Director (previously, Editorial and Programme Director) at the IEA. From 2002-2015 he was Professor of Insurance and Risk Management at Cass Business School. He is a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Federal Studies at the University of Kent and Adjunct Professor in the School of Law, University of Notre Dame, Australia. Previously, Philip Booth worked for the Bank of England as an adviser on financial stability issues and he was also Associate Dean of Cass Business School and held various other academic positions at City University. He has written widely, including a number of books, on investment, finance, social insurance and pensions as well as on the relationship between Catholic social teaching and economics. He is Deputy Editor of Economic Affairs. Philip is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries and an honorary member of the Society of Actuaries of Poland. He has previously worked in the investment department of Axa Equity and Law and was been involved in a number of projects to help develop actuarial professions and actuarial, finance and investment professional teaching programmes in Central and Eastern Europe. Philip has a BA in Economics from the University of Durham and a PhD from City University.



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