Briefing / Healthcare funding in Northern Ireland

This briefing analyses the differences in per capita healthcare funding in Northern Ireland and England, how it has changed between 2011 and 2015, and how funding might have been expected to differ from this had certain assumptions about the impact of drivers of healthcare funding need been applied consistently to both countries.

We have used the explicit assumption that the level and degree of variation in per capita funding in Northern Ireland and England in 2011 was appropriate. Given this assumption, we analyse the change in actual per capita growth in healthcare funding and compare it with what would be expected given various pressures on healthcare funding. 

We also look at the assumption that the degree of variation in healthcare funding in 2011 was appropriate. We look at the differential in healthcare need between Northern Ireland and England that is driven by differences in relative levels of deprivation. We use this differential to produce scenarios of how funding levels in Northern Ireland might have looked in 2011 if they reflected certain assumptions about the impact of deprivation on healthcare need. In turn, we see how this would affect the per capita healthcare funding expected in 2015.