‽istis reclaims your very good health
This week in the UK, as Doctors and the capacity of hospitals hit the headlines - leading some of us to fear that (the Government*) highlighting/creating* problems for a national health service might serve to soften up the public for a potential greater role for the (not-so)-’hidden sleight of hand’ of the market to work its dark arts and herald a blue-lit parade of private companies with their siphoning-profits-off-to-shareholders predilections supposedly riding to the rescue..., ‽istis sought to toast ‘your very good health’ and wondered about relative spending, effectiveness and value for money; about how we define ‘health’, ‘well-being’; and remembered a powerful perspective-giving test to apply to announcements about spending (perhaps more of this with next week’s budget proclamation from the UK House of Commons).
The customary online exploration has unearthed some websites, organisations, reports and sources of information that surely will be plundered again in the future. Here is a taster...
‽ The World Population Review (1) considers ‘the best healthcare in the world 2021’ ‘determined by considering a wide range of factors, including the care process (preventative care measures, safe care, coordinated care, and engagement and patient preferences), access (affordability and timeliness), administrative efficiency, equity, and healthcare outcomes (population health, mortality amenable to healthcare, and disease-specific health outcomes) and links to:
‽ CEO's Health Care Index (2):"...a statistical analysis of the overall quality of the health care system, including health care infrastructure; health care professionals (doctors, nursing staff, and other health workers) competencies; cost (USD p.a.per capita); quality medicine availability, and government readiness." Scoring these factors reveals a top five: 1) Denmark, 2) Norway, 3) Switzerland, 4) Sweden, 5) Finland (is there a theme here, ‽istis wonders...) with the UK coming in at a beaten-by-quite-a-bit-of-the-world 13th place.
‽ Further link-following took ‽istis to the ‘Legatum Prosperity Index’ (3) ‘ a tool for transformation, offering a unique insight into how prosperity is forming and changing across the world.’ As an aside, ‽istis was intrigued by this statement on the website: ‘Developed nations that expect so much of emerging nations must beware the trap of falling into the mindset of an overdeveloped society, vulnerable to entitlement and complacency...’
Nations are analysed and assessed against 300 country-level into indicators grouped into 66 policy-focused elements.
The good news seems to be that: ‘Near universal progress in health over the past decade, with all but 12 countries, including the U.S., seeing an improvement, has contributed to the rise in global prosperity.’ Health and welfare and well-being linked.
‽ But coming back to the ‘World Population Review’, a further table links healthcare and prosperity analysis - revealing that effective systems may not just be the product of prosperity, it may be as much about what you do with it as it is the size (a well-known saying perhaps from a particular branch of medicine and therapeutics...?). And so, we can announce the top ranked nations in respect of health care according to the analysis on this organisation’s webpages - followed by its prosperity rank (will the UK beat the world again? and with suitable pause for dramatic effect):
Healthcare rank:
South Korea (prosperity rank 28)
Taiwan (prosperity rank 20)
Denmark (prosperity rank 1)
Austria (prosperity rank 10)
Japan (prosperity rank 19)
Maybe, even now, the detail of methodology may be coming under scrutiny and that vital matter of whether apples are indeed being compared to apples may be being looked into (strangely enough perhaps more when the findings are unfavourable or disliked?), and there is almost certainly much, much more that could be explored and considered (not least perhaps in relation to such issues as: expenditure on health as a proportion of GDP; models of provision; private v public v insurance funding schemes; political system and hue of governments etc) and there are many organisations and reports and websites that could help, but just perhaps this first foray can provide some food for thought...?
Finally, what of that test mentioned in the lengthy opening paragraph?
A calculation for you (adopted from, and courtesy of a one-time feature on the BBC Radio 4’s ‘More or Less’ programme, I believe) when hearing announced spending (for example in a forthcoming budget):
- divide the sum of money announced - especially if it is linked to a timeframe (e.g: ‘this year we will be spending an additional £125million..., for example)
- by the relevant population e.g: c.67,220,000 people (UK as of today) = £1.86p per person
- further divide by 52 (weeks in the year) = 3.5p per person, per week
- further divide by 7 (days in the week) and lo and behold, as if by hidden hand magic, you have an amount which perhaps begins to represent the spending commitment per person, per day (= ½ p).
Just imagine what perhaps, possibly, maybe we could do with that!
© Pistis
* 'the Government' and '/creating' added later to differentiate
from those who are pointing out, vitally, the acute and chronic
problems for the NHS, its patients and staff...
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/best-healthcare-in-the-world Accessed October 2021
https://ceoworld.biz/2021/04/27/revealed-countries-with-the-best-health-care-systems-2021/ Countries with the best healthcare systems. Accessed October 2021
Legatum Prosperity Index: https://www.prosperity.com/ Accessed October 2021
NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders.
‘Follows’ and respectful comment and dialogue very much welcomed...
