Is the UK celebrating NHS’s 70th birthday?

Last weekend, the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) turned 70.  NHS is a protocolical single payer system.  Whereas Canada is a single payer system, provinces rather than the federal government makes most decisions and providers (i.e., hospitals and physicians) are private, for-profit businesses.  In the Netherlands, on the other hand, both providers and health…

Does more spending improve outcomes?

A number of studies have claimed that increased health expenditures may result in no better, or even worse outcomes.  For instance, a paper by Fisher et al. (2003) looking at patients with acute myocardial infarction, colorectal cancer, or hip fracture finds that “Quality of care in higher-spending regions was no better on most measures and…

Pay caps on nurses in the UK

I’m finishing my time in the UK today and head back home tomorrow.  The British Society for Rheumatology 2017 conference was interesting, on the news the key headlines were pay for National Health Service employees, nurses in particular. Due to budget shortfalls, the NHS froze nurse pay between 2010 and 2012.  Beginning in 2012, pay raises resumed…