NHS in intensive care
After yesterday’s heartbreaking vote in the House of Lords, today brings more bad news for the National Health Service. The snappily-titled statistics on Investment in General Practice 2006/07 to 2010/11 England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, published today by the NHS Information Centre, reveals that investment in the GP service is already on a downwards trajectory.
In the most recent year (2010/11) total investment in General Practice in the UK was £9,789.4m, compared to £9,748.7m spent in 2009/10 – an increase of just 0.4%. This represents a substantial slowing down of progress:
The breakdown for the nations of the UK is:
(The report indicates that “the large increase for Northern Ireland between 2007/08 and 2008/09 is largely due to the increase in employer superannuation contributions”.)
We can expect to see plenty more statistics like this over the coming years.