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How much...?

How much is spent on health and care?

In 2024/25, the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) spent £204.7 billion in total, which amounts to £3,492 per person. This budget is set to increase to £216.6 billion in 2025/26, and to £246.7 billion by 2028/29. This money is used to fund a wide range of health and care services, including GP services, ambulance, mental health, community and hospital services that are commissioned by the NHS, as well as public health services that are commissioned by local authorities. It also funds some social care services, which are mainly commissioned by local authorities. 

The majority of this money is spent on the day-to-day running of services. This portion of the budget is called the ‘resource’ budget and was £193.2 billion in 2024/25. It covers recurring operational costs, such as staff wages and training costs, medicines, personal protective equipment, and hospital utility bills. 

The resource budget also covers administration costs for the department and the health and care system, such as departmental running costs, regulatory costs and business services, eg, the NHS payroll. These costs make up just over 1% of the Department for Health and Social Care’s resource budget.

In addition to the resource budget, the Department also receives money to spend on fixed assets – one-off investments such as buildings, medical equipment and IT systems. This is called the ‘capital budget’ and was £11.5 billion in 2024/25. The NHS has a long-standing backlog when it comes to the maintenance of its buildings, which is estimated at £15.9 billion in 2024/25. This means the investment needed just to restore buildings to standard is higher than the entire annual capital budget. 

The Department of Health and Social Care budget is not the same as the NHS budget, but the latter makes up the lion’s share of the former. In 2024/25, the total NHS budget was £187.4 billion – 92% of the Department of Health and Social Care budget.

Find out more about health spending in our nutshell on NHS budgets.

What percentage of GDP does the UK spend on health compared with other countries?

In 2024, the UK spent 11.1% of its GDP on health, just above the average for comparable countries. This is higher than pre-Covid-19 pandemic levels – 10% of GDP was spent on health in 2019 – but lower than levels spent during the Covid-19 pandemic, which went up to 12.1%. 

How much of the NHS budget is spent on the workforce?

The NHS is one of the world’s largest employers, with around 1.38 million full-time equivalent staff in England as of March 2026. Consequently, the wage bill for the NHS makes up a substantial proportion of its budget. In 2024/25, the total cost of employing the staff in the NHS was £89.9 billion – just over 50% of the NHS budget. 

These statistics don’t include earnings for GPs (who are not directly employed by the NHS) or employees in the Department of Health and Social Care and other national bodies, such as NHS England. GPs and GP practice staff are indirectly funded by the NHS through a complex system of contracts.

What's the cost of an operation?

The cost to the NHS of an operation depends on a range of factors, such as the complexity of the procedure and how long the patient stays in hospital. The Unit Costs of Health and Social Care Manual estimates the average cost of an elective inpatient procedure at £6,620 for 24/25. 

In the NHS in England, the NHS payment scheme outlines the average cost of specific procedures. For example, in 2026/27 the cost of an elective hip fracture procedure varies from £2,365 to £7,684, depending on the complexity of the procedure and the condition of the patient. These average costs are then adjusted to take account of local variation, such as higher staffing costs in London (this is known as the market forces factor). 

What’s the cost of an using an ambulance and going to A&E?

In 2024/25, the average cost of using an ambulance ranged from £364 in cases where the patient could be treated in situ to £489 for cases where the patient was brought to hospital. 

The cost to the NHS of an individual going to A&E depends on the type of A&E – which can range from a major consultant-led department in a hospital to an urgent care centre or walk-in clinic – and the type of treatment the individual receives. For someone who attends an urgent care centre and receives the lowest level of investigation and treatment, the average cost in 2026/27 is £115. For an individual at a major A&E department who receives more complex investigation and treatment, the average cost ranges from £174 to £567. 

What’s the cost of a GP or dentist appointment?

A recent study estimated that in 2024/25 the average 10-minute face-to-face GP consultation cost the NHS £40. 

Unlike most other NHS services, which are free at the point of use, most adults in England pay for NHS dentistry services. As of 2026, patients were paying between £27.90 for a check- up and up to £332.10 for other services, depending on the treatment needed. 

For more detail, see our explainer on NHS dentistry. 

What’s the cost of community health services? 

A wide range of NHS services are provided in the community, all at different costs to the NHS. For example, in 2024/25 the estimated average cost of a face-to-face appointment with a district nurse was £60 and a stay at a mental health community rehabilitation centre was £324. In 2025/26, the costs of tests at community diagnostic centres start from £5 for a simple urine dip stick test but get much higher for more expensive tests such as an adult colonoscopy (£1,105). 

How many doctors, nurses and managers are there in the NHS in England?

Doctors and nurses delivering NHS services may work in hospitals, community care, or GP practices. Those working in hospital or community settings are employed by Trusts, whereas those working in GP practices are employed directly by the practice. Workforce numbers are reported separately for these two groups. 

In March 2026, there were 1.4 million full-time equivalent staff working in NHS hospital and community services. Over half are clinical staff (759,700), which includes: 

• 153,500 doctors 

• 373,900 nurses and health visitors 

• 206,700 allied health professionals and other scientific, therapeutic and technical staff.

Between 2010 and 2026, the largest increases have been in the number of doctors (61%), allied health professionals and other scientific, therapeutic and technical staff (49%) and other support staff (43|%). The number of managers only increased by 3% over the same time.

As of March 2026, there are an estimated 97,475 vacancies in NHS hospital and community services (including 7,500 doctors and 21,600 nursing staff). This means that 6.5% of all budgeted posts are vacant. This includes vacancies in hospitals and in the community, but not in general practice. However, these numbers are only estimates, as there is not yet a standardised method for reporting NHS vacancies. 

People working in general practice also provide NHS services, but are not usually employed by NHS trusts. Instead, they are typically employed directly by a GP practice or through a primary care network (PCN).

In April 2026, GP practices in England employed the equivalent of 150,600 full-time staff. Just under half (73,600) are clinical staff, including: 

• 38,900 GPs (including GP trainees) 

• 16,700 nurses

• 18,000 other direct patient care staff. 

The number of GP staff employed through PCNs is much lower. In April 2026, PCNs across England employed a total of 31,300 full-time equivalent staff, including: 

• 700 directors

• 1,200 GPs

• 1,400 nurses

• 25,200 other direct patient care staff

• 2,800 other admin/non-clinical staff. 

Continuous workforce data for general practice is only available since September 2015. During that time, there has been little growth in the number of GPs and nurses. Meanwhile, the number of admin and other non-clinical staff has increased steadily, as well as other direct patient care staff. This group has more than doubled in size since the implementation of the Additional Roles and Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS), which offers PCNs direct reimbursement for certain roles, such as paramedics and clinical pharmacists.

Find out more in our nutshells on the NHS workforce and staff shortages. 

How many groups commission care?

Since July 2022, integrated care systems (ICSs) have been responsible for planning most primary, community and hospital care services in their local areas, including urgent and emergency care. Currently, 36 ICSs operate across England – a number that has been falling as part of efforts to merge them. Besides commissioning, ICSs also focus on integrating health and care services, improving population health and reducing health inequalities. 

Find out more in our integrated care systems explainer.

How many NHS hospitals and GP practices are there in England?

All NHS hospitals are managed by acute, mental health, specialist or community trusts, and as of  mid-2026 there were 205 trusts, including 10 ambulance trusts. However, the number of NHS trusts does not correlate to the number of hospitals, as many trusts run more than one hospital – for example, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust runs 12 acute and specialist hospitals. 

As of mid-2026, there were just under 6,200 active GP practices in England. The number of practices has been falling in recent years due to mergers as well as closures. 

How many hospital beds are available in the NHS?

In early 2026, there were around 140,500 consultant-led beds available in the NHS (includes general and acute, learning disability, maternity, mental illness and short-stay beds). The total number of beds in the NHS will be higher, as this number doesn’t include critical care beds or those where the patient is under the care of a nurse rather than a consultant. 

The graph below shows that the number of available consultant-led beds in England has halved over the past 30 years. Medical advances that mean patients don’t have to stay in hospital for as long and a shift in policy towards providing treatment and care outside hospital have contributed to the reduction in bed numbers. However, fewer beds can lead to bed occupancy levels higher than the recommended level, and the UK has fewer hospital beds than many comparable countries. Recently there has been a move towards delivering more patient care in ‘virtual beds’ and as of April 2026 there were 12,600 virtual beds in operation. 

Find out more about NHS bed numbers in our nutshell.

What...?

What has been the long-term trend in demand for health care? 

Generally, demand for health care tends to increase as the population grows, and people live for longer with more complex and long-term conditions.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, demand for health care had been rising across all services and sectors. During the pandemic, demand for services fell, but demand has now returned to, and in some areas surpassed, pre-pandemic levels . 

For example, in emergency care, there were 3.2 million more attendances and 1.3 million more admissions at major (type 1) A&E departments in 2025/26 than there were in 2010/11 (when the current 4-hour A&E target was introduced). Demand for type 1 A&E services has returned to pre-pandemic levels, with a total of 17.1 million attendances and 4.7 million admissions in 2025/26. 

The number of outpatient appointments has more than doubled between 2003/04 and 2024/25. The number of appointments briefly fell during the Covid-19 pandemic, but then hit a record high of 113.2 million appointments in 2024/25.

Data on community care services is still in development, but experimental statistics suggest that the number of referrals for community care is now higher than pre-pandemic – from 1.1 million in January 2019 to 1.8 million in January 2026. 

What do patients, the public and staff think of the NHS?

Large-scale national surveys can give some insight into what people think of the NHS. The British Social Attitudes survey measures public satisfaction with how the NHS runs. In 2025, 26% of survey respondents were very or quite satisfied. This is higher than in 2024 but remains one of the lowest levels of satisfaction recorded since the survey began in 1983. 

The NHS also runs a range of patient surveys. In 2026, the GP Patient Survey found that 77% of patients had a good overall experience of a GP practice, and the Urgent and Emergency Care Survey found that 38% of major A&E patients had a very good overall experience in 2024. The NHS Staff Survey asks staff a range of questions about their experiences working in the NHS. For example, NHS staff are asked if they would recommend their organisation as a place to work, and in 2025, 58% of staff agreed they would. 

What was the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the NHS?

The Covid-19 pandemic completely changed the activity profile for the NHS. Hospitals cancelled routine procedures to ensure Covid-19 patients could be treated; this meant that the backlog of patients waiting for treatment grew by 45% between March 2020 and March 2022. Infection prevention controls, such as separating Covid-19 positive patients from negative patients, also limited hospital activity levels. Many services had to change the way they operated. Pre-pandemic, GPs were conducting around 3 million telephone appointments a month (around 14% of appointments delivered), but during the pandemic the estimated number peaked at 11 million in March 2021 (40% of appointments delivered). As of March 2026, this had fallen to 8.3 million GP appointments taking place over the telephone (25% of appointments delivered). 

What does an average day in the NHS look like?

There is no ‘average day’ for the NHS. Each day varies depending on the day of the week, the environment (eg, the season), social and cultural events (eg, bank holidays) and disaster events (eg, global pandemics). But if there were an average day for the NHS in England in 2025 it might look like this: