There has been a lot of discussion in the press in recent months about the costs, and cost-effectiveness, of the NHS. During the campaign for the Brexit referendum, there were totally fictitious figures bandied about on how much money Brexit would save, and how any savings could be ploughed into the NHS. Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

There have also been some stories about treatments that the NHS will, and will not, pay for. In this report from The Guardian is a story about a cancer treatment, costing £15,624 per month, which they will not pay for, on the grounds of "cost-effectiveness". Admittedly, £15,624 a month is a lot of money, but even so. it is a life-saving treatment. There is also this story in The Guardian which describes a new drug for treating cancer. The new drug is currently only available for very specific cases (affecting about 300 patients), while the NHS assesses its cost-effectiveness. There have been other recent news stories also mentioning cost-effectiveness as the basis of deciding whether the NHS pays for drugs and other treatments.

I have written a large number of cost/benefit cases, which are the basis of any analysis of cost-effectiveness, and I know that you need two basic elements: the cost, and the financial value of the benefit. In the case of medical treatments, the financial value of the benefit is the value of a life, or the value of improvements in quality of life and savings on other care costs that may be saved, and any such financial value is inherently subjective.

So, what I would dearly like to know is what value does the NHS and the UK government place on a human life, and how did they decide on this value? They must have settled on a number, otherwise they could not possibly do a cost-effectiveness analysis (although I suppose they could be lying about doing such analyses). I suspect that they have a financial amount in mind, and that the value they have decided on is so low that there would be a public outcry if it became widely known. I think that the public have a right to know, and that there should be an open debate on whether it is reasonable and fair.