Latest research published by the BMJ links austerity policies in the UK, particularly severe cuts to social care, with increasing death rates.
Research | 17.11.17
Cuts to public spending on healthcare and social care are linked to around 120,000 excess deaths from 2010 to 2017, researchers have found. In a paper "Effects of health and social care spending constraints on mortality in England: a time trend analysis" published in BMJ Open, researchers said that spending constraints had produce a substantial mortality gap in England.
The study found that deaths in England fell by an average of 0.77% a year from 2001 to 2010 but then rose by an average of 0.87% a year from 2011 to 2014.
"The papers’ senior author and a researcher at UCL, Dr Ben Maruthappu, said that while the paper “can’t prove cause and effect” it shows an association.
“When you look at Portugal and other countries that have gone through austerity measures, they have found that health care provision gets worse and health care outcomes get worse,” he told The Independent."
Read the article in full at:
BMJ Open is an online, open access journal, dedicated to publishing medical research from all disciplines and therapeutic areas.
The paper is available to read at:
http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/7/11/e017722
Dr Simon Duffy of the Centre for Welfare Reform said:
"This is at least the third major academic study showing the human cost paid for the Conservative Government's austerity policies. Alongside this research should be placed all the individual stories of suicide, family breakdown and misery created by this heartless Government. To anyone who has studied the evidence there is no surprise that the United Nations has described UK policy as a human catastrophe and in breach of basic human rights. What is surprising is the continued lack of coverage of these issues, particularly by the BBC. I hope that at some point in the future those responsible for these policies will be held personally responsible for these unnecessary deaths and for the human misery they have caused."
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