How likely are you to get the drugs you need if you are in a British hospital with 'established' coronary heart disease? It is impossible to give an accurate answer. But we can say that you are less likely to get the most commonly used drugs than you would elsewhere in Europe.
In Europe, 85.9 per cent of such patients are on 'Anti-platelets' but in Britain the figure is lower at 80.9 per cent.
Beta-blockers? The European average is 62.9 per cent. In Britain the figure is much lower at 43.8 per cent.
ACE inhibitors? Europe 38 per cent. Britain much lower at 27.4%.
Anti-coagulants? Europe 6.6 per cent. Britain 4.2 per cent.
The only class of drug which we use more of is that of lipid-lowering drugs. Britain uses it in 69 per cent of cases compared with 60.8 per cent in Europe on average. Germany uses these drugs to a similar as britain (67.6 per cent of cases) and has significantly or drastically higher usage of the other drugs.
I suspect this study points at one example of many in which drugs are under-prescribed in Britain. The study is available on www.heartstats.org and comes from the EURASPIRE II Study Group (2001)
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in NHS
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I've always thought the problem was over- prescription with doctors handing pills out like smarties!
Posted by: niconoclast at December 2, 2005 10:59 AM
How come there are no product shortages in Tescos or M and S etc? (he asked rhetorically.)
Only when Government is involved do we seem to have shortages and waiting lists and the NHS is surely an illustration of the failure of Socialism writ large with waitng lists the equivalent of the Moscow bread lines.
Surely it doesn't take an Einstein to work out that the market delivers goods and services far more efficaciously than the cumbersome and unwieldy centralist bureauacratic sclerotic ossified State? A 5 year old child could figure it out.
My beef is not so much with the architects of this monstrosity than the with the Conservatives for going along with it for the last 60 years.What's their excuse?
Posted by: niconoclast at December 2, 2005 02:31 PM
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The important question: is this a good thing or a bad thing? It's not use getting drugs that do you no good. perhaps (just, perhaps) British Doctors are 'so much better' than their European counterparts.
In addition to this, you have to remember that (amazing as it sounds), the UK spends relativly little on its health spending (look here: ). As such, we may have average health care, but still be getting above average value for money.
Perhaps the informational problems in helathcare mean that in practice private provision just doesn't work.
Posted by: Alec Hodgson at December 2, 2005 12:43 AM