Is chronic pain an outlier here, or representative of wider trends? My uninformed prior is that surgery is not a good approach for chronic pain, and that the NHS is more likely to cover surgeries with a more clear-cut cost/benefit ratio
For things like hip replacements, cancer treatment and other physical ailments the NHS is pretty awesome. Some stuff it fails at I am sure, but as you say that is in part down to the way that it prioritises care based on results.
