Rationed health care in UK kills more people than auto accidents

Guardian:

More than 17,000 people receiving treatment in the UK have died unnecessarily because of the inadequacies of the NHS, it is claimed today.

The figure, in a paper published by the Taxpayers' Alliance, is calculated using data given to the World Health Organisation. It compares the number of people who died prematurely, even though their illness was treatable, in five European countries.

The NHS performs worse on this measure of "mortality amenable to healthcare" than Spain, France, the Netherlands and Germany. If it had achieved the average of those four, 17,157 fewer deaths would have occurred in 2004, the most recent year for which the data is available, says the alliance.

That is more than five times the death toll from road accidents, says the alliance, which claims that the extra money for the NHS from the Labour government has been wasted. Mortality rates have improved, but only at the same rate as under Margaret Thatcher and John Major.

"Thousands of people are dying every year thanks to Britain's health service not delivering the standards people expect and receive in other European countries," said Matthew Sinclair, a policy analyst at the alliance and author of the report.

"Billions of pounds have been thrown at the NHS but the additional spending has made no discernible difference to the long-term pattern of falling mortality ... we need to learn lessons from European countries with healthcare systems that don't suffer from political management, monopolistic provision and centralisation."

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This is what Democrat health care proposals could do for the US. For some reason the Brits are proud of this mess. It is a real killer health care system. That old medical maxim "first do no harm" must not apply in the UK.