United Kingdom health expenditure

In the United Kingdom, annual expenditure on the National Health Service (NHS) is... 

The WHO report noted that many countries are falling far short of their potential and that expenditures per se do not necessarily produce the best system. This is exemplified by the fact that the United States, which is ranked 37th, spends 13.7% of its gross domestic product on health care, while the United Kingdom, which is ranked 18th, spends only 5.8%. 

The effectiveness of various measures to contain expenditure on medicines in the United Kingdom can only be assessed in the context of the situation in other European Union coimtries. Table 26.1 gives data for the total expenditure on health care as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP),... 

The National Health Service spends more than 8.6 billion a year on medicines, yet this represents less than 13 per cent of its total expenditure. Medicine exports are worth over 10 billion a year - the United Kingdom s third largest foreign exchange earner in manufactured goods. Nearly a quarter of the world s top 100 medicines were discovered in Britain. 

In 1996, total health care expenditure in the United Kingdom was approximately 7.0% of the GDP. Public expenditure by the National Health Service (NHS) accounts for most of the health care costs. The NHS was set up after World War II, with the aim of unifying health care services by voluntary and local hospitals. The NHS offers free health services to all U.K. residents, funded through general taxation. 

Virtually all other industrialized countries have national health insurance programs that include prescription drug benefits. Good examples, later in this chapter, are Australia, Canada, France, Japan, and the United Kingdom, which illustrate what other nations are currently doing to control expenditures for prescription drugs and what these controls mean for revenues from new drugs yet to be developed. 

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