May 11, 2021

The UK government is being urged to increase spending on NHS, social care, and public health needs. Jon Sussex, chief economist at RAND Europe, is available for interviews to explain how the public would prefer additional funds to be raised for health and social care in the UK.

Sussex has over 30 years of experience in the fields of health care and life sciences sector policy and economics in the UK and internationally. He is also codirector of the Cambridge Centre for Health Services Research, a collaboration between RAND Europe and the University of Cambridge.

A 2019 study coauthored by Sussex, Public Acceptability of Health and Social Care Funding Options, surveyed more than 2,700 people in all four UK countries to test their preferences between different ways of funding health care and social care.

Among other findings, the survey results show that:

• all sections of the public—across age groups, income groups, employment status, health status, and countries of the UK—would on average like additional funding for social care (and for the NHS) to be raised collectively, for example via progressive income taxation
• many people would prefer additional funding for social care to be raised in the same way as additional NHS funding
• people of all age groups feel that contributions should not differ by age, including those aged 18–24.

Read the short research brief here: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10079.html

To arrange an interview with Jon Sussex please contact Cat McShane on cmcshane@randeurope.org or +44 7525 967 079.