We’ve all got personal experience of the NHS in some way or another. It may be through receiving treatment or supporting friends or family through theirs. Whatever your perceptions, there are a few facts we should get straight from the start.

Now 60 years old, the NHS is a living, breathing organisation that continues to evolve and grow in line with the population. In fact, it’s growing and changing faster now than at any time in its history.

Our NHS is now one of the world’s largest publicly funded health services. It is also one of the most efficient, egalitarian and comprehensive. It is the single biggest organisation in Europe. And the ideal at its core is as valid now as ever: to ensure good healthcare is available to all.

The NHS remains free at the point of use for the 60 million residents of the UK.

Where scale means scope

Nationwide, the NHS employs more than 1.3m people. Of those, just short of half are clinically qualified, including some 90,000 hospital doctors, 35,000 general practitioners (GPs), 400,000 nurses and 16,000 ambulance staff.

Only the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, the Wal-Mart supermarket chain and the Indian Railways directly employ more people.

And that figure is only outdone by the number of people using the service: on average, eight per second which is 463 per minute or one million every day and a half. There are 10,000 GP practices and each GP sees around 140 people every week, whilst the nation’s NHS dentists collectively see 700,000 people each week.

For funding, read investment

In 1948, the NHS had a budget of £437 million (which equates to £9 billion today). In 2007/8, it received 10 times that amount – in excess of a staggering £90 billion.

Your business brain might be interested to know how this breaks down: around 60% to pay staff, 20% to pay for drugs and supplies, and 20% split between buildings, equipment and training, medical equipment, catering and cleaning.

80% of the budget is distributed to local trusts in line with the health priorities in their area.

NHS funding comes directly from taxation, and independent bodies such as the King's Fund agree that this is the ‘cheapest and fairest’ way of funding healthcare in comparison to other systems.

The 2007/8 budget roughly equated to a contribution of £1,500 for every man, woman and child in the UK.

Measuring performance

There are many different ways of measuring performance in the NHS (mortality; life expectancy; waiting times; patient satisfaction; bed occupancy; etc), but it is extremely difficult to measure how much health is improved for each pound spent. This makes it hard to measure the efficiency of any healthcare system.


However, we know that since the NHS was established, UK life expectancy has been rising and infant mortality continues to fall. Both figures compare favourably with other nations. Surveys also show that patients are generally satisfied with the care they receive from the NHS. At the same time, inequalities in health exist between different areas of the country, and within local populations – life expectancy may vary by 10 years by travelling 10 miles.


We continue to strive to reduce inequalities and make improvements in health for everyone.