Published 5 November 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b4593
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b4593

News

Cost of NHS and education grows faster than general economy

Adrian O’Dowd

1 London

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

The cost of providing NHS services has risen faster in the past 10 years than costs throughout the whole economy, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The office has also confirmed its findings published in June that the NHS’s productivity has fallen in the past 10 years despite large cash injections.

The office regularly examines public sector productivity, but the Changing Costs of Public Services report contains a new measure called "relative unit cost of public service output."

This wider measure takes into account productivity (how much input is needed to produce a unit output) and the changing cost of each unit of input (that is, labour costs and materials used).

Figures published on 3 November give estimates of how much the unit costs of public services, such as the NHS and schools, have changed compared with unit costs in general.

Overall, between 1997 and . . . [Full text of this article]


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