Healthcare expenditure, UK Health Accounts: 2024

Product Description

Healthcare expenditure statistics for 1997 to 2024, produced to the international definitions of the System of Health Accounts 2011. These are broader than those used in other UK analyses and include some services considered social care in the UK.

Main points

• Our provisional estimates indicate that nominal UK healthcare expenditure was approximately !!<£317 billion in 2024.</li>
  <li>Between 2023 and 2024, total healthcare expenditure grew by 6.5% in nominal terms and, after adjusting for inflation, by 2.4% in real terms.</li>
  <li>Healthcare spending as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) was 11.1% in 2024, similar to the level in 2023.</li>
  <li>Government-financed healthcare makes up most healthcare spending in the UK and was £258 billion in 2024, a real-terms increase of 2.5% from 2023.</li>
  <li>Total pharmaceutical spending (which captures the human consumption of medicines and vaccines) fell by 5.4% in real terms between 2022 and 2023 (the latest years for which data are available); this was mainly caused by lower spending on the coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination programme.</li>
  <li>Total long-term care expenditure grew by 3.1% in real terms in 2023, with the main cause being increased government spending on long-term care.</li>
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