Here’s an astonishing calculation. In England, in 2006, there were 16 million admissions to hospitals. That’s an astonishing number for a population of about 50 million!
As if that’s not astonishing enough, 6.5% of those admissions were for patients who were suffering from the bad effects of prescribed medicines. That works out at 1,040,000 patients!
At an average of £228 per day as the cost of a hospital stay and and an average of 8 days admission for each of these patients, the cost to the NHS in England in 2006 was £1,896,960,000.
Compass, the organisation which made this calculation concludes –
“Now is the time for a debate about costs and policies about which drugs the healthcare service can afford as people are paying infinitely higher prices – the drugs bill to the NHS now stands at £11bn – for increasingly marginal rewards and higher risk from adverse drug reactions.”
These figures are part of a trend. Every year the drugs bill gets higher and every year the cost of treating people for the adverse effects of prescribed drugs goes up. This isn’t a sustainable path. Is anybody thinking we need a re-think about health care?
Heroes Not Zombies 