The United States ranked last across a range of measures of health care in a comparison of 19 industrialised countries, despite spending more than twice as much per person on health as any other of the countries, says a report published last week.

The report shows improvements in some areas since the previous rating two years ago but found that other countries had improved more quickly. It analysed 37 measures, including access to care, quality of care, and health outcomes.

Overall, said Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund, the charity that developed the report, “the US scored far short of the best performance, either in other countries or within the best performing hospitals in the …