92001E2949

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2949/01

by James Nicholson (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(25 October 2001)

Subject: Spending on health and personal social services in Member States of the European Union

1. What was spent as a percentage of GDP on health and personal social services in each of the Member States during the last four years?

2. What was the per capita spent on health and personal social services (excluding capital projects) in each of the Member States during the last four years?

3. What percentage of that was funded:

- directly by government,

- privately,

- through insurance schemes?

Answer given by Mr Solbes Mira on behalf of the Commission

(14 December 2001)

The Commission does not collect all the information that the Honourable Member requests. In particular data on health expenditure is not collected routinely at the moment and the same applies to data on personal social services.

Data on health expenditure is collected by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), but great caution should be exercised in making comparisons between countries on the basis of this data because of the important differences in definitions between countries. The Commission is working with OECD to improve the quality and comparability of the data for example in relation to introducing a new framework, System of Health Accounts (SHA). Moreover, a key objective of the proposed public health programme is to provide a more comprehensive health information system for the Community.

Specific issues concerning the data provided in response to the Honourable Member are set out in the following paragraphs for health expenditure. Personal social services however are not a specific function in the European System of Social Protection Statistics. For this reason these data are not available.

The following data come from OECD and are sent direct to the Honourable Member and to the Parliament's Secretariat general.

1. The most recent reference year varies across Member States; data from 1994-1999 are provided to ascertain sufficiently long time series for each of the Member States.

2. The funding of health expenditures by (a) government, (b) private parties, and (c) through insurance schemes as requested is only available for Total Health Expenditure (THE). Per capita expenditures are provided in National Currency Units.

3. Comparisons across countries should be made with caution for the reasons mentioned above. First SHA prototype data for selected Member States indicate that the data may change substantially, when harmonised definitions are applied.