BREXIT has hammered Britain’s ability to fund the crisis-hit NHS because of poor economic growth, according to a professor at one of America’s top universities.
Professor Nick Bloom, a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, said on Twitter on Monday morning that leaving the European Union in 2019 had reduced UK GDP by between 6% and 11%.
This resulted in the state losing between £2000 to £3500 per person in spending power every year since Brexit, he continued.
Bloom wrote: “There is a debate on the impact of Brexit.
And yes this means if we had not had Brexit we could have used the extra growth to raise doctors and nurses salaries, expand capacity to reduce waiting times, and purchase more drugs and equipment.
— Nick Bloom (@I_Am_NickBloom) July 17, 2023
“Brexit reduced UK GDP by 6% to 11% vs Europe and North America. This is a loss of £2000 to £3500 per person per year. In comparison the UK spend just £3477 on the NHS per person in 2021.
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“And yes this means if we had not had Brexit we could have used the extra growth to raise doctors and nurses salaries, expand capacity to reduce waiting times, and purchase more drugs and equipment.”
His intervention came on the last day of the longest-ever junior doctors strike in England.
Medics will return to work on Tuesday morning and have been on strike to demand a 35% pay rise to make up for what they say has been 15 years of real-terms pay cuts.
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