The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has developed Health Accounts for the UK on an experimental basis according to an internationally agreed framework of concepts, definitions, classifications and accounting rules, drawn up by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Health Accounts provide a comprehensive, coherent and consistent statistical description of health care expenditure. As such, Health Accounts permit meaningful comparisons over time as well as across countries.
Most countries in the European Union, as well as the OECD group of countries and others globally, are taking steps to develop Health Accounts, and publicly available estimates for other countries can be found on the OECD website.
Having previously published experimental estimates of total UK health expenditure for 1997−2001 in February 2003 and for 1997−2000 in February 2002, ONS has reviewed the data sources and methods used in compiling the figures and is satisfied that they are consistent with the principles set out in the National Statistics Code of Practice.
ONS therefore published total UK health expenditure for 1997−2002 as National Statistics on 16 December 2003.
Along with the previous experimental estimates of total UK health expenditure released in February 2003, ONS also published a first set of UK Health Accounts on an experimental basis for the financial year 1999/2000.
This publication marked the end of a first stage of an iterative process, which is planned to lead to publication of figures on a National Statistics basis.
All figures, along with a description of data sources and methods, are available via the UK Health Accounts web pages. These pages will be the main means of disseminating the results of further development work on pilot UK Health Accounts.
