Report claims 17,000 unnecessary NHS deaths a year

A study produced by pressure group the TaxPayers’ Alliance claims that there are over 17,000 unnecessary deaths as a result of poor performance by the NHS every year.

This report was published as a statistical analysis of data provided by the World Health Organisation.

Wasting Lives: A statistical analysis of NHS performance in a European context since 1981, claims that the 34 billion pounds of extra founding spent in the past decade on the NHS have not improved mortality rates on the NHS in the UK.

It claims that if the figure of mortality amenable to healthcare in the UK was the same as the average of other European countries included in the study, there would have been 17,157 fewer deaths in 2004.

Matthew Sinclair, policy analyst at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Thousands are dying every year thanks to Britain’s health service not delivering the standards people expect and receive in other European countries.”

He added that additional spending had made no measurable difference to the mortality pattern, with it necessary that the UK learns lessons from other European countries.

Last week, a study published by the National Institute of Health Research reported progress in several key areas of research by the NHS.