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Political devolution means there are now four National Health Services in the United Kingdom. The health services of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all funded by the UK taxpayer, but have developed different systems of governance and different methods of providing healthcare. Funding and Performance of Healthcare Systems in the Four Countries of the UK Before and After Devolution examines the impact of this by studying key performance indicators for the NHS in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland at three time points - 1996/7, 2002/3 and 2006/7. The report also undertakes a completely new comparison of NHS performance in the English regions and the devolved countries. This is the first time such an analysis has been conducted. Key statistics for the NHS in the four countries are examined before and after devolution. Performance was tracked against a number of key indicators, including expenditure, staffing levels, activity (outpatient appointments, inpatient admissions and day cases), crude productivity of staff and waiting times. Broadly, the report found striking differences in performance with some UK countries spending more on health care and employing greater numbers of health staff but performing worse when it comes to a range of indicators, such as waiting times and crude productivity of staff. The analysis confirmed that, historically, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have had higher levels of funding per capita for NHS care than England. The research suggests the NHS in England spends less on healthcare and has fewer doctors, nurses and managers per head of population than the health services in the devolved countries, but that it is making better use of the resources it has in terms of delivering higher levels of activity, crude productivity of its staff, and lower waiting times. Some of these differences and trends may be because of historic differences in funding levels, which are not directly related to policy differences