Report slams poor NHS performance

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The figure is more than five times the number dying in road accidents and over two and a half times the number dying from alcohol-related causes in 2004, it said.

Researchers compared the UK with France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain for the TaxPayers' Alliance report.

They looked at "mortality amenable to healthcare" - the number of deaths from certain conditions and at certain ages - that healthcare can reasonably be expected to avert.

If the UK were to achieve the same level as the average of the other European countries, there would have been 17,157 fewer deaths in 2004, the most recent year for which data is available.

The report said an extra £34 billion of spending under Gordon Brown between 1999 and 2004 has made no difference to UK mortality.

Matthew Sinclair, author of the report and a policy analyst at the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "Thousands are dying every year thanks to Britain's health service not delivering the standards people expect and receive in other European countries.

"Billions of pounds have been thrown at the NHS but the additional spending has made no discernible difference to the long-term pattern of falling mortality.

"This is a colossal waste of lives and money.

"We need to learn lessons from European countries with healthcare systems that don't suffer from political management, monopolistic provision and centralisation."