How is the NHS financed?
Over 90% of NHS spending is met from general taxation and an element of national insurance contributions. The remainder comes largely from the receipts of land and property sales and a small amount from charges. This year the government has experimented with “hypothecated taxes”, earmarking £300m from tobacco tax increases for the NHS. The NHS plan, published in summer 2000, concluded that “the way the NHS is financed continues to make sense” and rejected alternatives such as private insurance, social insurance, new charges and rationing. Who gets the money? The £54.2bn allocation for the NHS across the UK in 2000-01 translates into £44.2bn in England. Scotland will this year spend £5.4bn on health, Wales around £3bn and Northern Ireland’s combined health and social services budget is just over £2bn. •Over half of the hospital and community health services budget goes on providing acute services, the general term for medical and surgical interventions provided in hospitals. • M
