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Written question asked by Lord Lansley (Conservative) on Tuesday, 10 January 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 12 January 2006. It was answered by Lord Browne of Ladyton (Labour) on Tuesday, 17 January 2006 on behalf of the Treasury.

Health Expenditure

Question
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer pursuant to the answer of 1 March 2005, Official Report, column 1062W, on health expenditure, what percentage of the United Kingdom's gross domestic product he estimates has been spent on health in 2005–06; what percentage this will be in 2006–07, broken down by (a) public and (b) private expenditure; and what the most recent estimate is of the (i) EU-15 and (ii) EU-25 average health expenditure as a proportion of gross domestic product.
Answer

The information about UK health spending is in the following table. According to the latest figures from the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), average total health expenditure in 2003 was (i) 8.7 per cent. of GDP for the EU-15 and (ii) 8.3 per cent. of GDP for the 19 members of the EU-25 that are also members of the OECD.

UK health expenditure as a percentage of GDP
2005–06 2006–07
Public expenditure 7.3 7.6
Private expenditure 1.4 1.4
Total UK expenditure 8.7 9.0
Notes: 1. The public expenditure figures are taken from Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses 2005. 2. Private spending is calculated in a similar way as for ONS health accounts. From 2004–05, it is assumed to carry forward as a constant share of GDP. 3. The EU averages are simple averages of the figures for each country; they are not weighted by country population. For seven countries where 2003 figures were not available, 2002 figures were used instead. 4. The 19 members of the OECD within the EU-25 are the EU-15 plus the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and the Slovak Republic.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
41999; 441 c1204W
Session
2005-06
Related items
Dept for International Development
Tuesday, 1 March 2005
Written questions
House of Commons
Subjects
Health Health services Expenditure Private sector NHS Public expenditure
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk