NHS: Expenditure
(asked on 13th July 2026) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of NHS expenditure has been allocated to (1) acute hospital services, (2) primary medical care (general practice), and (3) community health services, in each financial year since 2015/16.
The following table sets out the revenue spend categories for the specified services commissioned by NHS England and clinical commissioning groups, now integrated care boards, using audited figures between 2015/16 to 2024/25:
All spend figures are billions | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 | 2024/25 |
|
| |||||||||||
| |||||||||||
Specialised services | £14.8 | £15.4 | £16.4 | £17.2 | £18.5 | £18.8 | £20.5 | £22.7 | £25 | £27.1 |
|
Primary medical care | £8.7 | £9.1 | £9.4 | £9.7 | £10.6 | £11.7 | £12.3 | £12.5 | £13.6 | £14.5 |
|
Community services | £7.1 | £7.3 | £7.4 | £7.5 | £8.1 | £10 | £11.2 | £12 | £12.8 | £13.8 |
|
Continuing care | £4.3 | £4.7 | £4.6 | £4.7 | £5 | £6.3 | £6.1 | £6.2 | £7.1 | £7.8 |
|
Acute | £38.2 | £40.1 | £41.4 | £42.9 | £45.9 | £50.7 | £60.7 | £62.4 | £68.1 | £74.7 |
|
Core mental health | £7.3 | £7.6 | £8.1 | £8.5 | £9.3 | £10.4 | £11.9 | £12.7 | £14.2 | £15.5 |
|
Other | £18.9 | £17.8 | £18.3 | £18.6 | £18.4 | £21 | £21 | £20 | £20.4 | £21.9 |
|
Total CCG/ICB and direct commissioning spend | £99.4 | £102 | £105.5 | £109.1 | £115.7 | £129 | £143.7 | £148.6 | £161.3 | £175.2 |
|
Notes:
- delegated specialised commissioning has been included within the specialised commissioning line as well as directly commissioned spec comm to remain consistent with previous years; and
- prescribing and delegated pharmacy/ophthalmology/primary and secondary dental all sit within the ‘other’ category.
Information for 2025/26 is unvalidated and not quality assured. In-year data is not routinely reported on with the breakdown of spend used for this answer and would be subject to material change between plan and outturn as a result.
75% of NHS England commissioned social services are within the community services line.