If the UK NHS is in second place, you can imagine how bad the other countries must be!

Remember, we're talking efficiency, not quality of service. It makes perfect sense. Everything is used all of the time as there's no give in the stystem, it's running flat out to try and cope with demand.

Exactly. How do you define "efficiency" in a health care system? There is no detail in the article, so it is meaningless. You could easily invent "statistical [strike]lies[/strike] criteria" that would change the "top ten" completely.

France isn't listed, but my personal experience is that the French system offers better, faster and more personal care. There are even stories that our health care is so expensive that it's cheaper for the NHS to pay for patients to travel for private care abroad.

Efficiency can be measured in outcomes for each pound spent. France can still have a better health system but it costs more so its outcomes per unit of currency. Hence a lower efficiency.

What outcomes? Deaths?

That translates to letting patients requiring expensive care die.

Saving 100 lives for £1,000,000 is twice as "efficient" as saving 102 lives, where those extra 2 lives cost £500,000 each.

If the target is £s per life saved, then you're screwed if you need cancer treatment.

Outcomes could be successful treatment. Also because they skip a lot of haggling with insurance companies that you get elsewhere you save admin, and get treatment faster particularly for serious cases. If it were pure down to saving money they would put everyone with a low expectation outcome in the same ward as the MRSA patient to kill them off.