The NHS in numbers
A handful of figures for the size of the NHS in England, and simple ways to use them.
The NHS is too big to picture, which makes almost any number about it sound large. These figures are for the NHS in England. The per-day and per-person versions are the ones worth remembering: they turn a headline into something you can compare.
Money
£205 billion
NHS England's day-to-day budget
That's about £561 million a day, or £23 million an hour. It is planned to reach £215 billion in 2027/28 and £226 billion in 2028/29.
£3,480
NHS spending per person in England, per year
Spread across about 58.8 million people. That's roughly £10 a day each.
ONS, population estimates, mid-2025 (published 1 October 2026)
£112.5 billion
Costs counted in NHS England's cost collection
What 205 NHS trusts spent providing care, not counting high-cost drugs. See what individual items cost.
Activity
35.1 million
Appointments in general practice in a month
About 1.17 million a day. 60% were face to face, and 45% happened on the day they were booked. Months vary: autumn is busy.
NHS England, Appointments in General Practice, September 2026 (published 29 October 2026)
24.7 million
Emergency care attendances in a year
About 67,800 a day, of which about 47,100 are at major (type 1) A&E departments.
55.0 million
Consultant-led outpatient appointments in a year
Plus 7.6 million day cases and 1.3 million planned inpatient stays.
People
1.8 million
People working for the NHS
About 1.6 million full-time equivalents. That's roughly 1 in 33 people in England, and one of the largest employers in the world.
Nuffield Trust, The NHS workforce in numbers (from NHS England workforce statistics)
467,000
Nurses and midwives
And about 216,000 doctors, including 28,800 full-time-equivalent GPs. Doctors and nurses together are well under half of NHS staff.
Nuffield Trust, The NHS workforce in numbers (from NHS England workforce statistics)
Pressure
7.37 million
Treatments waiting on the planned-care list
That's about 6.24 million people, since some are waiting for more than one treatment: roughly 1 in 9 people in England. 113,339 had waited over a year.
NHS England, referral to treatment waiting times (published October 2026)
Rules of thumb
- Divide by 365. NHS England spends about £561 million a day, so a £50 million announcement is about 2.2 hours of NHS running costs.
- Divide by the population. With about 59 million people, every £1 billion is about £17 per person.
- Divide by the workforce. With about 467,000 nurses and midwives, "10,000 extra nurses" is about 2.1% more.
- Count pathways or people? The waiting list counts treatments, not patients. Check which one a headline uses before comparing it with anything else.
- Check the period. A monthly figure, a yearly figure and a financial-year figure can't be compared directly, and months vary with the seasons.
Where these figures come from
Each card links to its source. Activity and cost figures come from NHS England's National Cost Collection and update automatically when a new edition is published. The budget, population, workforce, GP appointment and waiting list figures are updated after a quarterly check for newer releases. The per-day, per-person and "1 in" figures are worked out from the figures shown, so they change with them.
This is my personal site, so these are my reading of public data, not an official view of the NHS or of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust.