Abstract
Costing more than £150 billion each year, health services in the United Kingdom constitute 9.8%, of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), a level of expenditure that is comparable with the turnover of an oil major such as BP. The United Kingdom’s health market is dominated by the National Health Service, which accounts for 83% of health spending. This is more than the corresponding figure for either France or Germany, where publicly financed health care accounts for 77% of total provision, although it falls short of the 85% allocated by both Holland and Denmark. The Washington-based Commonwealth Fund rated the National Health Service (NHS) the overall most impressive healthcare system in 2014, comparing those from 10 major developed countries, but the United Kingdom came 10th in the category of healthy lives. This may reflect the fact that, in terms of purchasing-power-parity-preserving International Dollars, the United Kingdom’s annual health spending per person, at Int$4015, is noticeably less than comparable figures for Holland (Int$5343) or Germany (Int$5267) or Denmark (Int$4943) or France (Int$4415). So, while health spending in the United Kingdom has increased very significantly in real terms, over 50% in terms of GDP per head in the last 20 years, it is perhaps not surprising that there is a continuing pressure to increase health budgets, accompanied by a desire to get better value from the money available.
Faced with perennially tight budgets, NHS England has exhorted its staff to maximise efficiency by adopting the challenging maxim: ‘think like a patient and act like a taxpayer’. But its 2016/2017 Business Plan also recognises the transformative power of harnessing new and innovative technologies. In June this year, the CEO Simon Stevens highlighted the contribution that new devices could make: ‘there are huge opportunities to improve the quality of care and also save money … by getting millions of new med tech devices into the hands of frontline nurses and therapists’, with many of these new tools destined for the personal use of the patients themselves. Acknowledging that ‘getting wide uptake has often been slow and frustrating’, Mr Stevens linked the growing power of technology to the problems of funding: ‘Now, at a time when the NHS is under pressure, rather than just running harder to stand still, it’s time to grab with both hands these practical new treatments and technologies’.
The Symposium, ‘Smart Sensor Systems for Self-Care’, will be held on 18 January 2017, sponsored by the Institute of Measurement and Control and co-sponsored by the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers, the European Knowledge Tree Group, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and City, University of London. The event will consider the developing role of self-care in the United Kingdom’s health provision, showcasing new developments in non-invasive sensing and the role of genomics while also exploring the barriers impeding the uptake of near-patient testing, including the need for education. Economics, including the role of insurance, will also be discussed. The event, which will bring together GPs, equipment developers, academics, small and medium enterprises, health administrators, insurance companies and politicians, will be held at City, University of London. Application forms are available from the Institute of Measurement and Control at www.instmc.or or contact 020 7387 4949.