NHS places 14th in EU healthcare systems list

The NHS has placed 14th on a list of the top 33 healthcare systems in Europe, it has emerged.

Coming in just ahead of Slovenia and the Czech Republic, the NHS was evaluated by Health Consumer Powerhouse on 38 different sets of criteria, such as prompt access to family doctors and the speed at which patients receive necessary scans, reports the Telegraph.

Areas in which the NHS performed particularly well include making new drugs available to its patients and providing 24/7 healthcare information by phone and online.

The Netherlands topped the list, followed by Denmark, Iceland, Austria, Switzerland and Germany respectively.

Doctor Arne Bjornberg, director of the Euro Health Consumer Index, said that the NHS was the subject of “surprisingly negative feedback”, despite more funds being allocated to it in recent times.

“It seems that management of the behemoth NHS organisation is difficult to do under a centralised paradigm,” the news provider quotes him as saying.

Meanwhile, a report compiled by the TaxPayers’ Alliance encompassing 187 NHS trusts in England concluded last week that the healthcare service is failing to make full use of the expensive high-tech equipment it possesses.