
Winners revealed in the Finder Insurance Innovation Awards 2021
These inaugural awards recognise the insurance brands displaying the best innovations in their field.
Read more…Health is a topic that’s always on the news in the UK, whether it is about the current status of the NHS, how healthy the nation is or the latest medical breakthroughs. We gave the UK a health check by diving into the latest statistics for obesity, life expectancy, alcohol consumption and more. See all the statistics below, skip to a section using the quick links box or learn more about private health insurance.
In 2021, there were approximately 157,800 hospital beds available per night in the UK. This figure has been declining since 2000, when there were around 240,000 hospital beds available per night, which is 34% fewer beds compared to the year 2000.
Year | Available hospital beds |
---|---|
2000 | 240,144 |
2001 | 238,641 |
2002 | 236,205 |
2003 | 235,512 |
2004 | 231,399 |
2005 | 224,882 |
2006 | 215,513 |
2007 | 207,789 |
2008 | 205,976 |
2009 | 203,326 |
2010* | 183,831 |
2011 | 181,972 |
2012 | 178,841 |
2013 | 176,791 |
2014 | 176,324 |
2015 | 169,995 |
2016 | 168,934 |
2017 | 167,589 |
2018 | 165,844 |
2019 | 163,873 |
2020 | 162,723 |
2021 | 157,804 |
According to the annual BSA survey, over 4 in 10 of Brits (43%) are unhappy with how the NHS is currently being run. The survey suggests that this is the first time since 2002 where more people in the UK are unhappy with the NHS than happy.
Response | Percentage |
---|---|
Very or quite satisfied | 36% |
Dissatisfied | 41% |
Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied | 23% |
In the UK, life expectancy was 80.21 years for 2018–2020, with females having a longer life expectancy of 82.15 years compared to males of 78.27. Life expectancy has increased by 1.16% from 2018–2020 compared to 10 years previous in 2008–2010.
Out of the UK nations, England has the highest life expectancy at 81.23 years, followed by Northern Ireland (80.52 years), Wales (80.19 years) and lastly Scotland (78.90 years), the only nation with a life expectancy less than 80 years.
Explore the table below to see how life expectancy has changed from 2008–2010 to 2018–2020 and how this differs between the UK nations and gender.
Total average | Male life expectancy 2018–2020 | Male life expectancy 2008–2010 | Male change since 2008–2010 | Female life expectancy 2018–2020 | Female life expectancy 2008–2010 | Female change since 2008–2010 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
United Kingdom | 80.21 years | 78.27 years | 77.15 years | 1.45% | 82.15 years | 81.44 years | 0.88% |
England | 81.2 years | 79.33 years | 78.31 years | 1.30% | 83.12 years | 82.33 years | 0.96% |
Scotland | 78.90 years | 76.79 years | 75.8 years | 1.31% | 81.01 years | 80.32 years | 0.86% |
Wales | 80.19 years | 78.29 years | 77.51 years | 1.01% | 82.09 years | 81.66 years | 0.53% |
Northern Ireland | 80.52 years | 78.65 years | 76.97 years | 2.18% | 82.38 years | 81.43 years | 1.17% |
There were over 568,334 deaths in the UK in 2021, a decrease of 3.6% from 2020 (607,922).
Reason for death | Total amount | Percentage of total deaths |
---|---|---|
COVID-19 | 67,350 | 11.5 |
Dementia and Alzheimer's disease | 61,250 | 10.4 |
Ischaemic heart diseases | 56,960 | 9.7 |
Cerebrovascular diseases | 29,041 | 5 |
Malignant neoplasm of trachea bronchus and lung | 28,190 | 4.8 |
UK adults who drink alcohol | Percentage |
---|---|
Drinks alcohol | 57% |
Does not drink alcohol | 43% |
We looked at the latest statistics to see how many adults (aged 18+) are smoking daily in the UK compared to other countries around the world.
14.5% of the adult population smokes daily, which means the UK ranks 29th out of 30 countries compared to their smoking habits.
The country with the lowest percentage of smokers is Iceland where 7.2% of people smoke on a daily basis. The country with the highest percentage of daily smokers is Indonesia, where almost 1 in 3 adults (32.6%) smoke daily.
Country | Percentage |
---|---|
Indonesia | 32.6 |
Türkiye | 28 |
Russia | 25.8 |
France | 25.5 |
China (People's Republic of) | 25.3 |
Greece | 24.9 |
Hungary | 24.9 |
Argentina | 24 |
Latvia | 22.6 |
Slovak Republic | 21 |
Austria | 20.6 |
South Africa | 20.2 |
Spain | 19.8 |
Luxembourg | 19.2 |
Switzerland | 19.1 |
Lithuania | 18.9 |
Germany | 18.8 |
Italy | 18.8 |
Estonia | 17.9 |
Chile | 17.6 |
Slovenia | 17.4 |
Poland | 17.1 |
Japan | 16.7 |
Czech Republic | 16.6 |
Israel | 16.4 |
Ireland | 16 |
Korea | 15.9 |
Belgium | 15.4 |
United Kingdom | 14.5 |
Netherlands | 14.4 |
Around 13% of the UK population has some kind of health insurance, and, in general, Brits spent £6 billion on voluntary health insurance in 2017, which was around 3% of overall spending on health care in the UK. We looked into the consumer price index (CPI) of health insurance to find out how much inflation is impacting the cost of health insurance in the UK. Using 2015 as a base year, we can see that health insurance cost 21% more in 2019 than it did in 2015 and 5% more than in 2018. Explore the table and graphic below to find out more.
These inaugural awards recognise the insurance brands displaying the best innovations in their field.
Read more…Find out if optical insurance is right for you and how it could save you money.
Read more…We found that, despite health insurance being so beneficial for shortened wait times and cheaper costs, only a small proportion of UK citizens are covered.
Read more…Find out if optical insurance is right for you and how it could save you money.
We found that, despite health insurance being so beneficial for shortened wait times and cheaper costs, only a small proportion of UK citizens are covered.