The past and future of UK health spending

After being cut back sharply in the 2010s, capital spending has increased in recent years – though in 2023–24, the capital budget in England was raided to fund day-to- The Institute for Fiscal Studies, May 2024 3 The past and future of UK health spending day pressures, returning to the bad practice of the late 2010s. [...] Making international comparisons of government health spending is challenging, but the available data suggest that the UK has moved up the ranks of health spending among comparable countries over the last three decades, going from comfortably below the European average in the early 1990s, to around the average in the mid- 2000s, and slightly above average from the late 2000s onwards. [...] The Institute for Fiscal Studies, May 2024 7 The past and future of UK health spending and the ‘Test and Trace’ programme, which contributed to the pronounced spike in real-terms spending in 2020–21 and 2021–22. [...] With those caveats in mind, the available data suggest that in the early 1990s, UK public health spending as a share of national income was below the EU14 average and one of the lowest in the G7. [...] Since the 1990s, the UK increased its total health spending as a share of GDP and moved up international ranks, rising from near the bottom of the EU14 to just below the median from the mid-2000s.