Re:FDA approves intranasal esketamine formulation
by jdietrich on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @05:17AM
(#19317798)
>The UK's NHS seems to be a better system to compare to ;-) I lived there for 2 years and was really surprised at what the NHS covers.
The caveat is all of the stuff that the NHS won't cover. The service is largely free at the point of use, but there has always been some element of rationing which has drastically increased in recent years due to Conservative government cuts.
Mental health gets the short end of the stick in this respect - it represents 23% of the disease burden but only 13% of NHS spending. Most patients with a mental health condition will never see a psychiatrist and receive no more than six half-hour sessions of psychotherapy. If esketamine does prove to be effective, the NHS is exceedingly unlikely to offer it to more than a handful of patients until the patent expires.
The caveat is all of the stuff that the NHS won't cover. The service is largely free at the point of use, but there has always been some element of rationing which has drastically increased in recent years due to Conservative government cuts.
Mental health gets the short end of the stick in this respect - it represents 23% of the disease burden but only 13% of NHS spending. Most patients with a mental health condition will never see a psychiatrist and receive no more than six half-hour sessions of psychotherapy. If esketamine does prove to be effective, the NHS is exceedingly unlikely to offer it to more than a handful of patients until the patent expires.
https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/resource/rationing-in-the-n...