How the NHS measures up

doi:10.1136/bmj.a385

BMJ 2008;336:1469-1471 (28 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.a385

Analysis

NHS at 60

How the NHS measures up

Tony Delamothe, deputy editor

¹ BMJ, London WC1H 9JR

tdelamothe@bmj.com

In the fifth article in his series, Tony Delamothe examinestwo important factors in judging the success of the UK healthsystem: the satisfaction of its users and how it rates compareswith other countries

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The previous four articles in this series have dealt with howthe founding principles of the NHS have fared over the past60 years.¹ ² ³ ⁴ I have judged them against the utopian aspirationsof 1940s Britain for a national health service that was universal,equitable, comprehensive, high quality, centrally funded, andfree at the point of delivery. Much of my attention has thereforebeen directed backwards and inwards.

In this article, I want to look outwards. Firstly, I want tocapture what the British public thinks of the NHS today. Andsecondly, I want to see how the NHS compares with other healthcaresystems that share many of the NHS’s underlying principles.

People seem happy with their NHS care, with more than 90% consistentlyrating their inpatient care as good, very good, or excellent(fig 1).⁵ In a 2006 survey for the Department of Health, 74%of those who attended . . . [Full text of this article]