What a topical subject about an institution for which we Brits have so much love and affection (quite rightly).
It’s the elections today and all the parties vying for our vote are slinging stats around right, left and Chelsea.
The claims about taxation are built on so many assumptions that they are worse than useless in the real world (outside the political bubble).That was (I’m paraphrasing) my reading of the Institute for Fiscal Studies diagnosis the other day.
Spending promises are a little easier to grasp, and to hold the claimant’s feet to the fire over the next government.
So how much should our beloved NHS and UK healthcare system be used as a political football?
After all, you can hardly turn on the TV or the radio or your web browser without finding somebody talking about the ‘woeful under-funding of the NHS’ or something similar.
OK, stats-nerds, it’s time to look at the data. And it’s very revealing.
We’re spending much less than France or Germany, right?
Sort of. But not by a huge amount.
Latest OECD figures (a consistent and reliable source) show that we are spending 11.3% of GDP on healthcare, compared to 12.1% in France and 12.7% in Germany.
So there is a difference, and work to do (and taxes to pay)… but the difference is not longer ‘woeful’ or ‘radical’.
OK, but they spend much more than us on healthcare in those wonderful Scandinavian countries, right?
Wrong. Denmark – 9.5%. Finland, 10%. Sweden, 10.7%. Norway, 7.9%.
But Australia must be better, where all those British doctors are (allegedly) fleeing to… right?
Wrong. Australia, 9.6%.
You get the picture.
So what’s the point of these comparisons.
In business, we must make sure we are working from the best and the latest data.
Politicians will be partial, exaggerated, erroneous… whatever it takes to get into (and stay in) power. And it seems they can get away with it, more’s the pity.
But don’t make the same mistake in business.
If you’re found out, the penalties can be very costly indeed.
Being a little nerdy is often a good thing.
