SNP Call for £16bn NHS Boost at UK Budget
The SNP has challenged the Chancellor to deliver a major funding boost of at least £16billion a year for the NHS at the UK budget, as new research reveals the UK Government has lagged behind our European neighbours on health spending in every single year of the 21st century.
The analysis, commissioned by the SNP and using OECD data, shows the UK Government spends less on healthcare per capita than almost every other country in north west Europe.
Across the past two decades, the UK has spent less on healthcare than our European neighbours in every single year. On average, our European neighbours spent £5,654 per person per year on healthcare between 2000 and 2023, compared to £4,609 for the UK. That is a gap of more than a thousand pounds (£1,045), or 19%, per person per year.
In 2022, the most recent year for which data is available for all countries, the UK government spent less on health than thirteen of the fourteen countries in north west Europe. It spent £7,963 per person, which was £5,097 (almost 40%) less than Norway (£13,060), £3,288 less than Germany (29%), £3,255 less than Switzerland (29%), £2,916 less than Luxembourg (27%), £1,894 less than Ireland (19%), £1,836 less than the Netherlands (19%), £1,679 less than Denmark (17%), £1,533 less than Austria (16%), £1,524 less than Sweden (16%), £954 less than France (11%), £845 less than Iceland (10%), and £589 less than Belgium (7%).
Last year, the same trend continued, with the UK government spending the least of the eight countries for which 2023 data is currently available, and £1,986 (19%) less per person than the average of our European neighbours.
A funding boost of £16 billion would deliver an additional £1.6 billion in Barnett consequentials to spend on healthcare in Scotland, and it would be a start in closing the gap with our European neighbours – raising UK spending by around £238 per person.
The SNP call for more funding follows the publication of a damning report into NHS England last month, and a growing debate about NHS funding ahead of the UK budget. The report, by Lord Darzi, warned NHS England is in a “critical condition” and “serious trouble“. It says the NHS in England has been chronically weakened by the UK government’s policy of austerity and starved of capital investment – leading to “crumbling buildings“.
Despite this, Rachel Reeves halted NHS England’s hospital building programme and placed it under review as one of her first acts as Chancellor. She has also instructed UK Government departments to model cuts to their investment plans of up to 10% of their annual capital spending ahead of the Budget.
This analysis reveals how our health services in the UK have for over twenty years been underfunded as compared to those of neighbouring EU countries.
GRAEME
The UK Government’s chronic underfunding of NHS England has a knock-on effect on the money available for NHS Scotland, and a major funding boost is now required.
A damning report on the state of the health service in England does not seem to have served as the wake up call that it should have for the new Labour Government, which is committing itself to continuing the Tory legacy of austerity.
It is evident from the higher levels of spending across our European neighbours that more can and should be done – more austerity under Labour is the opposite of what is desperately needed and will damage the NHS in every part of the UK.
New House of Commons Library analysis, commissioned by the SNP:
OECD data explorer – health expenditure and financing data: https://data-explorer.oecd.org/
