Spending on health and social care over the next 50 years Why think long term?
Fifty years ago, the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom consumed around 3.4 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) Now, public spending on the NHS is nearly two-and-a-half times greater – amounting to 8.2 per cent of GDP and equivalent to seven times more in real terms.
Historically, the key drivers pushing up spending on health and long-term care include an increase in the size of the population, growth in national wealth, increases in the costs of providing care, and developments in medical technology. The ageing of the population is also a factor, although of much less importance than is generally supposed: increases in life expectancy tend simply to delay the time at which the health care costs associated with death are incurred rather than increasing these costs per se. This is an important point as it challenges the conventional thinking that spending on health care will rise inexorably as the population ages. In fact, the pressure to spend more will largely be driven by other factors. If the next 50 years follow the trajectory of the past 50, then the United Kingdom could be spending nearly one-fifth of its entire wealth on the public provision of health and social care. However, higher spending on health and social care should not be seen solely
as a debit or a burden. It is also a credit: higher spending would improve the population’s health, well-being and quality of life. It would also have wider positive impacts on economic activity and productivity, too.
Based on high-level modelling and a variety of assumptions, future trends for health and long-term care spending across many industrialised countries also suggest upward pressures on spending: across the 27 European Union countries (plus Norway), public spending could rise from 6.7 per cent of GDP in 2007 to 13 per cent by 2060. Across all Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development nations, public health care spending is projected to rise from 5.7 per cent in 2005 to between 7.7 per cent and 9.6 per cent by 2050, and long-term care could more than double or possibly treble to between 2.4 per cent and 3.3 per cent of GDP over the same period. If private spending via social and other insurance schemes is added in, all of these figures increase considerably.
Published : 12th March 2013
Author : John Appleby [ More From This Author ]
Publisher : The Kings Fund [ More From This Publisher ]
Rights : The Kings Fund
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