§ Tim LoughtonTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if(a) over-the-counter health remedies bought by private individuals, (b) money spent on health by charities and (c) money spent on non-NHS nursing 1556W homes are included in his Department's figures for total UK health expenditure as a percentage of gross domestic product in comparison to EU country figures. [39209]
§ Ruth KellyI have been asked to reply.
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.
Letter from John Kidgell to Mr. Tim Loughton, dated 28 February 2002:
The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your recent parliamentary question asking if (a) over the counter health remedies bought by private individuals, (b) money spent on health by charities and (c) money spent on non-NHS nursing homes are included in figures for total UK health expenditure as a percentage of gross domestic product in comparison to EU country figures. I am replying in his absence. (39209).Comparative figures for total health expenditure in EU countries are published by the OECD in "OECD Health Data 2001", UK figures for this dataset were provided in February 2001 by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and do not incorporate improvements made in compilation methods since then. Deviations from the international definitions are fully documented within the dataset.On 12 February 2002, ONS published estimates of total UK health expenditure for 1997–2000. The methods for estimating some of the components of the total new and relatively untested, so the improved estimates are being released as experimental. ONS has provided the experimental estimates to OECD for inclusion in "OECD Health Data 2002", the release of which is planned for June 2002. These experimental estimates do include expenditure on over-the-counter remedies bought by private individuals, money spent on health by non-profit institutions serving households (mainly charities) and money spent on nursing care in non-NHS nursing homes.The improvements in methods used bring the total UK health expenditure estimates more into line with the international definition, promulgated by the OCED and supported by the World Health Organisation, the World Bank and the European Commission. Details of the methods have been published in Economic Trends No 579(February 2002) and on the National Statistics website.