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 * 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

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.

Overall

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, the changes presented in investment in the

health

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sector were slight across all countries over three different

years

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

health

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

as well as

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2012 (11%

GDP

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

health

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for the same

years

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.

On the other hand

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, 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

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

GDP

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across).

In contrast

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

GDP

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

GDP

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spent on

health

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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

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