Other statistics released last month showed a small improvement in NHS accident and emergency performance after three of the worst weeks on record over Christmas.

The EHCI report said the UK "is still definitely a part of European waiting list territory" adding that "unfortunately, in 2014, the English waiting time scores are worsening slightly, which is confirmed by English press reports on health care accessibility".

However, it said that efforts within the NHS to reduce hospital infections have paid off.

The Netherlands has been in the top three countries in each report published since 2005. The latest one said the Netherlands has addressed a weak spot accessibility by setting up 160 primary care centres which have open surgeries 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In addition, politicians and bureaucrats seem farther removed from operative health care decisions in the Netherlands than in almost any other European country. This could in itself be a major reason behind the Netherlands' landslide victory".

The authors praised the very respectable amount of money ploughed into the Swiss health care system, coupled with a good score for accessibility. Norway has benefited from a very high per capita spend on health care services which is finally paying off according to the report. Meanwhile Finland has made a remarkable advance, and seems to have rectified its traditional waiting time problems".

The report was supported by two unrestricted grants. The first came from Medicover S.A in Belgium, a private health care organisation dealing in health insurance, prepaid health and medical services, occupational medicine and laboratory services. The other came from the New Direction Foundation in Belgium, which describes itself as a free market, European-realist think-tank affiliated to the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists.

According to the report authors, the results show the flaws in health care systems like the NHS model, known as the Beveridge system, where the financing and provision of health care are handled within one organisation.

The other type of system, the Bismarck system, is based on insurers who are organisationally independent of care givers and health care providers. This is the case in the Netherlands, Germany (ranked ninth) and Switzerland.

The Netherlands example seems to be driving home the big, final nail in the coffin of Beveridge health care systems, and the lesson is clear: remove politicians and other amateurs from operative decision making in what might well be the most complex industry on the face of the Earth: health care, wrote the report authors.

Beveridge systems seem to be operational with good results only in small population countries such as Iceland, Denmark and Norway.

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Netherlands tops health care rankings, with UK in 14th place