Spending on UK health care is increasing faster than other public spending

Spending on health in the United Kingdom is rising at a much faster rate than spending on the other public services, says the Office of Health Economics, an organisation largely funded by the UK drug industry to provide independent research on health care.

The report says that in the 2001–2 financial year the NHS, after several years of growth, received 17% of total public spending, the highest proportion of public spending that it has received since its inception in 1948. In 2001–2 education took 14%, but social …