Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences
- The Open Access Proceedings Series for Conferences
Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Economic Management and Green Development
Series Vol. 33 , 10 November 2023
Open
Access | Article
Evaluation of the Effectiveness of NHS under the COVID-19 Pandemic
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Abstract
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the UK in 2020 and brought UK’s economy into recession, the high budget burden of NHS and its insignificance in stimulating the economy make people start to question the effectiveness of the annual high government spending on NHS. This paper uses online databases, basic economic theories, and case studies to evaluate the effectiveness of NHS during the COVID-19 pandemic. After analyzing the pros of cons of high government spending on NHS, the paper gives potential adjustments to the current policy. It is found that the high government spending on NHS had led to a spike in the budget deficit and caused a reduction in potential long-term economic growth and credibility rating. Meanwhile, the impact of the spending as an expansionary policy turns out to be ineffective due to the low multiplier effect under the pandemic. NHS did promote equity but meanwhile brought the overconsumption of medical resources. NHS increases the life expectancy of UK citizens but at a decreasing rate. To reduce the adverse impacts and thus expand the effectiveness of NHS, the paper suggests that the government should shift its focus from the purchase of medical resources to investment in the research and development of healthcare; the government should wait for the MPC to increase in order to achieve a greater multiplier effect or just simply use monetary policy as an alternative; and the government should quickly improve the guidelines for medical treatment and punish those who abuse medical resources.
Keywords
macroeconomics analysis, NHS, COVID-19 pandemic
References
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2. Statista (2022) Total healthcare expenditure in the United Kingdom from 2000 to 2021. https://www.statista.com/statistics/317669/healthcare-expenditure-in-the-united-kingdom/
3. Statista (2022) Total managed expenditure of the government of the United Kingdom from 1981/82 to 2024/25. https://www.statista.com/statistics/298465/government-spending-uk/
4. Gov.UK (2022) UK government debt and deficit: September 2022. https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicspending/bulletins/ukgovernmentdebtanddeficitforeurostatmaast/september2021
5. Mathew Keep (2023) The budget deficit: A short guide. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06167/#What%20Is%20The%20Budget%20Deficit%20and%20How%20Big%20Is%20It?
6. Bank of England (2022) Effective interest rates-December 2021. https://edu.bankofengland.co.uk/statistics/effective-interest-rates/2021/december-2021
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8. Robert Atenstaedt, Jayne Gregory, Carole Price-Jones, Jill Newman, Lyn Roberts, Jim Turner (2015) Why do patients with nonurgent conditions present to the Emergency Department despite the availability of alternative services? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25405462/
9. Denis Campbell (2014) NHS wastes over £2bn a year on unnecessary or expensive treatments. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/05/nhs-wastes-over-2-bn-on-unnecessary-treatment
10. Worldometers (2023) Life Expectancy of the World Population. https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/
11. Macrotrend (2023) U.K. Life Expectancy 1950-2023. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/GBR/united-ki ngdom/life-expectancy
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13. Bank of England (2022) Financial concerns and the marginal propensity to consume in Covid times: evidence from UK survey data. https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/working-paper/2022/financial-concerns-and-the-marginal-propensity-to-consume-in-covid-times.pdf
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Data Availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
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- Volume Title
- Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Economic Management and Green Development
- ISBN (Print)
- 978-1-83558-087-5
- ISBN (Online)
- 978-1-83558-088-2
- Published Date
- 10 November 2023
- Series
- Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences
- ISSN (Print)
- 2754-1169
- ISSN (Online)
- 2754-1177
- DOI
- 10.54254/2754-1169/33/20231626
- Copyright
- 10 November 2023
- Open Access
- This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited