An independent think tank, UK2020, has published a report, The UK Health System: An International Comparison of Health Outcomes, which compares the health outcomes of the NHS with the health outcomes of other countries with national healthcare services.

The report found that patients in the UK have substantially lower chances of surviving cancer than patients in other developed countries.  For example, if British:

  • breast cancer patients were treated in Belgium, the country with the 12th-highest breast cancer survival rate in the world, about 2,500 lives would be saved every year
  • bowel cancer patients were treated in the Netherlands, there could be 3,200 additional survivors every year
  • lung cancer patients were treated in Australia or Iceland, 2,400 lives could be saved every year
  • prostate cancer patients were treated in Sweden, about 2,600 lives could be saved every year

 

The full report is available online here.