SERVICE..AND HER OWN CAREER Are they listening at last?
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50 years ago. Now, it’s £110billion. Plus another £20.8billion goes on council care. That means 30p out of every £1 for public services is for healthcare.
But when the NHS was created in 1948, life expectancy was 13 years shorter. People are living longer with a growing number of long-term chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and dementia.
By the age of 65, most people will have at least one of these. By 75 they will have two. The average 65-year-old costs the NHS 2.5 times more than the average 30-year-old. An 85-year-old costs more than five times as much.
Over the next 15 years, doctors will have to cope with 4.4 million more over 65s and an extra 1.3 million aged 85-plus.
Under the Tories, the NHS has been starved of cash – with its tightest ever financial settlement between 2010 and 2015.
Britain now spends less of its wealth on health than the European average, and we have fewer doctors, nurses and beds per patient than Germany, Sweden and France.
The new 10-year plan will include preventing disease by reducing smoking and depression.
A report by think tank Pro Bono Economics showed the kind of savings taxpayers would make if mental health counselling was available in more primary schools.
Charity Place2Be spent £4.2million delivering one-to-one counselling to 4,548 children across 251 schools.
That generated potential savings of £25.9million – or £6.20 for every pound Charity Place2Be spent.