Monthly Archives: October 2012

I went to the Healthy Nation conference in London last Wednesday where the Rt Hon Stephen Dorrell MP, Chair of the House of Commons Health Select Committee was interviewed by Victoria Macdonald, Health and Social Care correspondent, Channel 4 News

He said that demands on the UK NHS have been rising at a rate of 4% a year since 1965 but the budget for health had increased at a rate of only 3% a year over the same period and it can’t be raised any more. To make the challenge even harder, our Chancellor of the Exchequer (George Osborne) has announced plans to save £20 billion in the NHS by 2014

I have done some sums and worked out the following:

At the time of the invention of our NHS, the average school leaving age was 15, people worked until 65 and died shortly after. So they were productive and paying taxes for about 50 years. On the flip side they were non-productive and somewhat of a burden to the state (in education or healthcare or state … Continue reading →