NHS

Presentation given at the Scottish Government Strategy Unit Seminar Series.

This article was written for the National Council for Research Methods (NCRM)'s newsletter

In this Observation, we assess the empirical evidence on what has happened to health and social services spending in England and Wales since 2010–11. We find that the relative degree of protection offered to these services does differ between the two countries.

This presentation was given at the launch of the IFS Green Budget 2015.

This week the Care Quality Commission (CQC) published comparable information on all GP surgeries in England for the first time, with the aim of identifying which practices should be prioritised for newly introduced inspections. Understanding whether, and why, some GP practices fail to provide quality care is important given the vital role that GPs play within the NHS. In recent years, there have been substantial changes to the organisation of GP practices, with a shift away from single-handed practices towards practices with six or more full time equivalent GPs. A new IFS report published today finds that small, and in particular single-handed, GP practices are more likely to provide poorer quality care than larger GP practices, as measured along a number of dimensions. This suggests that the trend towards larger practice sizes may have had beneficial effects on the overall quality of primary care provided.

The future of the welfare state, and particularly of the NHS, has taken centre stage in the Scottish independence debate in recent days. Given the political rhetoric, there is a clear need for some impartial analysis. In this observation we try to set out some of the facts on both recent changes in NHS spending in England and Scotland, and the prospects for the future whether Scotland is in or out of the Union. Our analysis suggests it is unlikely that independence would make it easier to find additional money for the NHS.

This presentation was given at the IFS Public Economic Lectures on 16 December 2013 in London.