Overall, the proportion of adults with unmet health needs increased in Western European countries, whereas Eastern European countries faced the opposite trend over time, despite having initially higher rates of unmet medical needs among their adult population.
In 2008, the percentage of unsatisfied health needs among adults in Eastern European countries spread from a value just under 10 % for Estonia to approximately 17% for Latvia without forgetting to mention Sweden where the percentage value was the average of the values of the two other countries. Between 2008 and 2012, there was a huge resurgence in the proportion of not enough hospitalized adults mostly in Estonia that saw its initial percentage value doubling in 2012, evenly matching the percentage of neglected adults in need of medical attention in Latvia. In 2014, Estonia went again to become the country with the lowest rate of neglected adult patients comparing to Sweeden and Latvia soon before attaining its second peak value of 17% in 2018. Between 2014 and 2022, Estonia and Sweden both experienced a receding in the percentage values with a remarkable fluctuation of the percentage of non-hospitalized adults which went from 11% to 3% in 2019 for Sweden which wasn’t the case for Estonia that had a smoother descent. Ultimately, the three countries went on to reach very similar values in 2022, closely revolving around 11%.
In 2008, United Kingdom, Ireland and France all had a starting value close to 4%. This percentage rose to around 6% in 2014 for the three countries despite the 2012 dip to 2% in the United Kingdom. Between 2014 and 2018, the 3 countries saw an improvement in their health system where the proportion of unsatisfied adult patients regarding their treatment dropped to slightly over 4%. However, it didn’t take much long for the trio of Western European countries to reach unprecedented high levels of poor medical attention for adults with the United Kingdom stealing the lights with its remarkable peak at 15% in 2022, which surpassed by far the recorded figures in the 5 other countries.