NHS malpractice costs more than smoking

Government accounts show 'gobsmacking' costs

Estimates showing £10.9bn in unpaid tax was written off and medical negligence could cost £15.7bn are "gobsmacking", says the Commons spending watchdog.

The ten billion in unpaid tax I am fine with. The Government wastes the bulk of tax it receives anyway, so the less they get the better.

It was the fifteen billion for medical negligence that caught my eye.

This BBC article from 2009 puts the cost of smoking on the NHS at five billion. ASH have gone as far as to estimate the cost at thirteen billion, although by doing so they suggest that every citizen has the moral obligation to live as long as possible in order to keep working.

There is no report I have seen, scientific or nonsense, that puts the cost higher than this estimate on medical negligence.

Maybe those people who think the NHS shouldn't be spending any money treating people should take a look at the treaters rather than the treatees. If the NHS got it's act together it could save a lot more money than persecuting smokers has ever done.

Smoker hatred gives a large chunk of the treasury's assets to single issue groups made up of the otherwise unemployable though.