HC Deb 05 June 1981 vol 5 cc439-40W
Dr. Roger Thomas

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what percentage of the gross national product has been spent on health care in each of the last two years since May 1979; and what information he has about equivalent figures for western industrialised countries for the same period.

Dr. Vaughan

I regret that the information requested is not yet available for the United Kingdom for 1980. It is difficult to make reliable international comparisons of the share of gross national product spent on health care because of substantial differences between health care systems and the treatment of health spending in national accounts. Nor do such comparisons take account of differences in value for money. With these provisos, we estimate that the proportion of GNP spent on health care in a range of western industrialised countries in recent years is broadly as follows:

Country Total health expenditure as percentage of GNP
West Germany 9.7
Sweden 8.7
Netherlands 8.6
Belgium 8.5
Austria 8.5
United States of America 8.4
France 8.1
Norway 8.1
Switzerland 8.0
Canada 7.1
Finland 6.8
Denmark 6.6
United Kingdom *5.6
Greece 5.5
* 1979.