Lessons from Canada: Managing reform in times of austerity

In the 1990s, following an economic recession, many provincial governments in Canada were forced to cut their health budgets for successive years, while also implementing structural reform.

The Nuffield Trust and the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation (CHSRF) held a partnership seminar in May 2011 to explore Canada’s experience of managing health reform in a time of austerity, with the aim of informing strategies for helping the National Health Service (NHS) through its current financial challenges. A subsequent research summary: Managing health reform through an economic downturn (October 2011), by Nuffield Trust Senior Fellow Ruth Thorlby, is based on the presentations and discussions held at the seminar.

This presentation of key slides from the study, illustrates the real per capita GPD (national income) and public sector health expenditure in Canada before, during and after the recession. The slideshow also highlights the number of doctor consultations per capita, and the number of physicians and hospital beds per 1,000 population over the same period.

This study forms part of the Nuffield Trust’s wider research project: Managing the NHS through the financial squeeze: learning from international experience.