Jennifer Mendoza
Research expert covering health, pharma and medtech
National Health Service (NHS) finances UK - Statistics & Facts
The National Health Service (NHS) was founded in 1948 and has become the world’s largest publicly funded health service. The founding principle – to provide free health care to the whole population, based on need and not ability to pay – has not changed to this day. Residents in the United Kingdom benefit from free services ranging from GP visits to elective surgery. For a few services such as dental care or prescription drugs, fees are still required (apart from those aged under 16 or over 60 years). Running such a large service involves a lot of costs and in 2021 government health care expenditure amounted to 213.3 billion British pounds. Nearly two-thirds of this were spent on curative and rehabilitative care, while eight percent was spent on pharmaceuticals.
