29.03.2024

How much have YOU cost the NHS?

If you’ve ever sat down and wondered just how much you cost the cash-strapped NHS each year, here’s your answer.

A new interactive tool jots up roughly how expensive you’ve been to the taxpayer-funded health service in terms of keeping healthy.

The handy quiz even compares your final answer to how much you’ve contributed to the NHS over the past year.

It comes as the NHS is facing its worst financial crisis in a generation as it struggles to meet the needs of the aging population on a very tightly-constrained budget.

Take the test below

Estimated costs are added up by asking how many operations you’ve had in the past 12 months, from knee replacements to wisdom tooth removals.

The GoCompare test also quizzes you on how many times you visited your GP, were given a prescription for medication and even stayed in hospital overnight.

Having a baby, ringing 999, attending A&E, getting crutches and undergoing an MRI scan are also mentioned in the interactive quiz.

At the end, users of the tool can then input their annual salary to determine roughly how much they contribute to the NHS each year.

Figures suggest that NHS England will spend in excess of £123 billion looking after the population this financial year.

Last week, Chancellor Philip Hammond promised the health service a £2.8 billion cash injection over two years – but this was a third of what experts had asked for.

HOW MUCH DOES EVERYTHING COST?

The majority of the NHS budget is spent on the day-to-day running of the health service, while the rest is spent on infrastructure, training and IT.

However, health trusts across the country have reported severe financial constraints in recent years as chiefs tightens their purse strings.

Designers of the tool claim that the costings are just approximate and ‘should not be relied upon as definitive’.

However, the cost figures tend to come mostly from Government sources. Others are available on charity websites and newspaper outlets.

Tax contributions are estimated using similar rough calculations, based on how much the NHS receives from the budget.

It comes as a study yesterday found that millennials are 50 per cent more likely to miss GP appointments than those of their parents’ generation.

Patients who fail to turn up are a huge drain on NHS resources, with 12 million sessions missed every year at a cost of £160 million.

The first major study, published in the Lancet Public Health Journal, found 16 to 30-year-olds are the most likely offenders.

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