[cs02rm0]

The NHS consumes about half of all day to day public service spending. It is singular in its ability to suck spending out of UK government.

[dtf]

That seems like a lot. Can I ask where you got that figure? Is "day-to-day" denoting some kind of specific budget?

I just tried to Google it and their AI responded with "The NHS and social care account for roughly half (49%) of all day-to-day public service spending controlled by the Westminster government.", linking me to a report from the The King's Fund [1].

But on reading that report, it seems to say only that 49.5% is the cost of staffing the NHS from its own budget, which it states as £205 billion in 2024/25 - that's more like 20% of the year's public spending [2]. Which seems more in line with what I had assumed.

[1] https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/data-and-c...

[2] https://obr.uk/docs/dlm_uploads/BriefGuide-M23.pdf

[nickdothutton]

Out of all day to day government spending on services (health, schools, police, courts, etc), the NHS consumes about 40% of departmental expenditure limits [1]. Although it is pre-covid and the picture has worsened significantly since then, this BBC article is quite good too at examining the different figures [2].

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/public-spending-sta... (Diagram in section 2.2) [2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42572110

[cs02rm0]

It was widely covered at the time of the Spending Review last year, based on government figures.

Day-to-day is the routine, required cost of running the state, without long term infrastructure spending.

[cjrp]

How much of that comes right back to the government, in the form of tax income?

[cs02rm0]

I'd imagine a similar ballpark to any other day-to-day government spending. It might affect perception around the absolute number on the balance sheet, but it won't significantly affect the proportion of spending.