You should spend about 20 minutes on this task. The bar chart below shows current health expenditure totals as percentages of GDP* for various European countries for the years 2002, 2007 and 2012. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant. You should write at least 150 words. * GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is the total value of goods that are made and services that are provided in a country.

The bar chart illustrates the amount of money spent on healthcare by twelve different countries in Europe in 2002, 2007 and 2012. Unit is measured in percentages of

GDP

.

Overall

, the changes presented in investment in the

health

sector were slight across all countries over three different

years

. Switzerland had the greatest expenditure, as opposed to Estonia which presented the lowest spending on

health

. In detail, the Swiss remained the highest spenders on European healthcare in 2002, 2007

as well as

2012 (11%

GDP

). Belgium, Spain and Estonia followed a similar trend spending consecutively 10%, 8% and 3% of the Gross Domestic Product on

health

for the same

years

.

On the other hand

, countries like Denmark, Norway, Slovenia, Poland and Lithuania had a bigger percentage of expenses in 2012 (11%,10%, 9%, 7% and 6% respectively) compared to the rest of the

years

given (10%, 9%, 8%, 6% and 6%

GDP

across).

In contrast

, Luxembourg was the only one in Europe to invest less of its

GDP

in healthcare in 2012 (around 7%) than it did in the previous times (8%). In detail, the percentage of

GDP

spent on

health

by the French fluctuated, beginning at 10% in 2002 and going all the way to 11% in 2007, to drop to 9% in 2012. An interesting tendency can be observed in the Netherlands, where the expenditure decreased across the

years

(2002-2012) from 10% to 8%.