Every year, patients receive substandard treatment from NHS staff. According to figures from the organisation itself, around £1.9 billion of the service’s total expenditure goes towards settling up with patients who’ve made medical negligence claims. This represents a small fraction of the organisation’s 130 billion budget, which as a percentage of GDP has been rising consistently since its inception, but which has endured a period of stagnation since the financial crisis in 2008.
With an impending pandemic of COVID-19 to contend with, many could be forgiven for thinking that the NHS lacks the resources to fend off negligence lawsuits. But exactly what does the NHS spend its money on every year?
What does the NHS look like overall?
The majority of NHS spending (63%) goes into GP surgeries and hospitals. These are generally what we think of when we think of the NHS and its work. But there are also other sources of expenditure to think about. With an aging population, long-term care represents a growing chunk of the overall picture. It generally takes place in the home and in specialised institutions, and accounts for some 15% of the overall budget.
Staff Wages
According to figures provided for the year ending March 31st 2019, employee expenses account for around £55 billion of the organisation’s total budget. Of these, around £13.9 million are medical staff, with £21.5 million classes as nursing staff. Other staff, constituted predominantly by administrative and caretaking roles, account for the remaining £19.5 million.
Drug costs
Each year in England, the NHS spends around £16 billion on new drugs. Of these, around £9 billion comes from the drugs prescribed by GPs, and the remaining £7 billion from hospital treatment applied directly. This later category of spending is rising far more quickly than the NHS’s expenditure as a whole, but, according to the organisation, this extra money is being used to improve overall efficiency, and limit the waiting times for new, more effective drugs.
Other Costs
In England, the NHS spends around 7% of its budget each year on care from private providers. This is a substantial rise from just under 3% in 2007, though it has fallen slightly from a peak in 2017. You can expect this number to rise substantially as the organisation seeks extra capacity to deal with the coronavirus epidemic.
Technically speaking, every GP is a private small business under contract from the NHS themselves – though for the purposes of the figures, this technicality is usually discounted.
The budget for capital has recently increased to £7 billion. This is to cover a backlog of facilities considered in need to expansion and replacement. Of these, around £1billion is considered ‘high-risk’, which means that urgent attention is warranted.
