Britain’s poor record on health spending | Letters

For a rich nation, we are asking our NHS doctors and nurses to provide excellent care with comparatively limited levels of support, and it is hardly surprising that standards of delivery in particular areas of care appear low (Nine out of 10 NHS groups failing on cancer care, ratings show, 4 October).

OECD figures for 2014-15 show that the UK ranks 15th out of 42 countries surveyed in public spending on health provision. The 14 countries ranked above the UK spend, on average, 25% more per capita than the UK. With 2.8 doctors per 1,000 inhabitants, the UK ranks 24th out of 39 countries surveyed by the OECD; and with 8.2 nurses per 1,000 inhabitants, the country ranks 17th out of 38.

It is in levels of bed provision, however, that the figures appear most disturbing. With 2.7 beds per 1,000 inhabitants, the UK ranks joint 27th of 35 countries surveyed. Thirteen countries have more than twice this number of beds per patient and four – Japan, Korea, Russia and Germany – have three times as many.

These figures reflect the relatively low priority that successive governments have given to public health provision over several decades.
David Wilcock
Dalston, Cumbria

• I am dismayed to see the Guardian persisting with the popular conception that suffering from cancer somehow equates to having a fight (Actor Ben Stiller discloses prostate cancer fight, 5 October). Can we please remember that cancer is just one of a list of serious diseases, and that it does a profound disservice to cancer sufferers to infer that it is some sort of battle that you can either win or lose? As with all diseases, whether you get better or not is very often not in your control.

I, like Ben Stiller, had prostate cancer which was detected by a blood test and then treated by a radical prostatectomy. It was bad luck on me to have contracted the disease but I was fortunate to have been diagnosed at an early stage and to then receive the correct treatment with a successful outcome. I was not a winner. I had not won any fight but merely been well treated for a serious disease. If I had been less fortunate with my treatment would I be seen as a loser, one who had not fought hard enough?
Peter Clark
Nottingham

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Britain’s poor record on health spending | Letters