[International comparisons of health care resources. Expenditure shared the GNP is inadequate. Complementary real...

Since the health care expenditure share of the GNP (gross national product) is a measure difficult to interpret, its use can yield erroneous results in comparing health care sector development in different countries. A complementary measure of health care resources is the size and structure of the health care labour force. Information from Sweden, Denmark, the United Kingdom and the USA shows that development in expenditure share of the GNP in no way reflects development in labour resources in the respective countries. Ranking of national costs differs depending on the measures used, which is partly to be explained by differences in relative prices in terms of various investment factors--e.g., salaries of qualified personnel. The generally slow wages trend in the Swedish health care sector is a contributory factor explaining why the marked increase in the labour force during the 1970s and 1980s is incompletely reflected in the health care expenditure share of the GNP. Studies of personnel resources at the hospital level in the above-mentioned countries have shown marked national differences to exist in terms of working hours, service contracts and job descriptions, which further explains the differences manifest at an aggregate level.