The Numbers Speak 3

Count Heads, Wobble the Same

Last week (today is the 20th February 2025)I watched on the BBC an otherwise good and largely in situ report on day in the life of a London hospital; a report being use as a proxy insight into the state of the English National Health Service. So far so good. But, despite pointed reference to BBC Verify as some sort of Holy Grail of precision it contained one glaring mistake, which may or may not make a different to the ultimate conclusions – I suspected the latter, by the way - but happens regularly in many reports and should not be happening in any.

So let’s have a look at the case in point. It was contained in a piece to camera by Ben Chou in the New at Ten. It was backed by large and impressive graphs access adroitly by the finger-touch and was specifically about, to quote, “The amount of money the UK spends on health”. The contention was that it has been rising for decades. No doubt of veracity there. And it was backed visually, amongst others, with a graph, the source of which was shown to be the Institute of Fiscal Studies. Little question of probity there either. It showed an obviously rising trend (apart from a post-COVID blip right at this end) from 1950 to almost the present day. In the former case it was approximately £20 billion, in the latter £250 billion, all shown as adjusted by prices i.e. a measure of inflation, in the case based on 2024-5.

Again so far so good. But there is one very salient factor that has been ignored – population. In 1950 the United Kingdom was said to be more or less permanent home to neatly 50 million of us. Today it is sixty-eight million at least. Some even have it at nearer seventy-five but whatever the true situation resource is being expended on more people and it makes a difference, one which needs, at least to be reflected. So let’s do it.