Louise O'Reilly
Ceist:758. Deputy Louise O'Reilly asked the Minister for Health the level of public investment in healthcare per patient; and the way in which this compares with the European Union average. [14158/20]
Amharc ar fhreagraTuesday, 7 July 2020
Ceisteanna (758)
Freagraí scríofa
The OECD’s System of Health Accounts (SHA) enables international comparison of Healthcare expenditure (HCE) by tracking all HCE in a country over a defined period of time. HCE is presented in relation to each country’s economy, measured as a share of GDP, or to its population, measured as per capita health spending. The OECD applies a purchasing power parity (PPP) adjustment to countries’ HCE, reflecting relative prices/costs across countries. This provides for a comparable measure of the volume of services supplied per capita across countries. The measure is expressed in US dollars. Furthermore, the OECD classify HCE according to the financing of healthcare which allows for more detailed analyses. The classifications of healthcare financing sources include ‘public financing’ which is defined as Government and compulsory contributory healthcare financing schemes. Reviewing the SHA public healthcare expenditure for 2019, Ireland’s expenditure per capita was US$ PPP 3,919. This puts Ireland in 9th place compared to the rest of EU countries. The EU27 average public healthcare expenditure in 2019 was US$ PPP 2,872 per capita.
This data is publicly available at https://stats.oecd.org/.
It is important to note that 2019 is the latest OECD SHA data available, and therefore does not account for the impact of COVID -19 on HCE across OECD countries. It is also important to note, that the OECD cautions about comparability limitations in relation to the SHA. Challenges in achieving cross-country comparability of HCE arise particularly from the differing approaches taken by countries to organising and accounting for their social care systems. As part of my Department’s Joint Research Programme in Healthcare Reform with the Economic and Social Research Institute, a paper is currently being prepared for publication which will examine in detail how Irish HCE compares internationally with the aim of distinguishing the effects on comparisons of healthcare prices and volumes, accounting issues and health system characteristics.
I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.