Health in the UK: Facts and statistics

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.

General health in the UK

Life expectancy: 80.21 years on average (2020). Males can expect to live up to 78.27 years and females to 82.15 years.
Healthy life expectancy: The age up to which people can expect to live healthily is 62.8 for men and 63.6 for women.
UK health spending: £257.6 billion was spent on health care by the government in 2020. This means that £3,840 was spent per person.
Fertility rate: The UK’s fertility rate is 1.7, which can be compared to the EU’s average of 1.6. The perfect fertility rate is 2.1, which is when each generation replaces itself.
Deaths: In 2021, there were 568,334 deaths in the UK. This is a 3.6% decrease from 2020, where there were 607,922 registered deaths.
Alcohol: 57% of adults (aged 16+) in the UK drink alcohol.
Smoking: 14.5% of adults (aged 18+) in the UK smoke daily.
Obesity: 68% of adult males and 60% of adult females were overweight or obese in the UK.

The number of hospital beds available in the UK

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.

Graph
Table

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

Are Brits happy with the National Health Service (NHS)?

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.

Graph
Table

Response	Percentage
Very or quite satisfied	36%
Dissatisfied	41%
Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied	23%

Life expectancy in the UK 2022

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%

Death statistics in the UK

There were over 568,334 deaths in the UK in 2021, a decrease of 3.6% from 2020 (607,922).

Top causes of death in the England and Wales (2021)

Coronavirus: 11.5% of all deaths registered were due to COVID-19. In total, 67,350 deaths were reported due to the virus over 2021.
Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease: 61,250 deaths (10.4%).
Ischaemic heart disease: 56,960 deaths (9.7%).
Cerebrovascular disease: 29,041 deaths (5%).
Malignant neoplasm of trachea bronchus and lung: 28,190 deaths (4.8%).

Graph
Table

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

Mental health statistics in the UK

There were 5,583 suicides in England and Wales in 2021, with a death rate of 10.7 per 100,000 people.

1 in 6 people experience a common mental health problem.

1 in 5 women are reported to have mental health problems.

1 in 8 men are reported to have mental health problems.

Alcohol consumption in the UK

There were 280,000 estimated alcohol-attributed hospital admissions in 2019/20.

Alcohol-related admissions make up 1.6% of all hospital admissions in 2020.

Over two-thirds of patients admitted to hospital attributed to alcohol were male (65%).

Most recent survey suggested that 57% of Brits drink alcohol, this would mean 38 million people in the UK drink in 2022.

Graph
Table

UK adults who drink alcohol	Percentage
Drinks alcohol	57%
Does not drink alcohol	43%

How many Brits smoke daily?

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.

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Table

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

What percentage of the UK is obese?

10,780 hospital admissions directly attributable to obesity.

64% of UK adults are overweight or obese in 2020.

68% of men and 60% of women are classified as overweight or obese.

67% of adults are considered active as per government guidelines.

441,000 workers sustained a non-fatal injury at work in 2020/21, up from 581,000 in 2018/19 and 28% less than in 2017/18 (621,000).

142 deaths were recorded from work-related accidents in 2020/21, this is 31 more deaths than in 2019/20 but 5 fewer deaths from 2017/18.

1.7 million workers suffered from work-related ill health (new or long-standing) in 2020/21.

800,000 workers suffer from work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2020/21.

650,000 workers had a work-related illness that was caused or made worse by the effects of COVID-19.

The cost of health insurance

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.

The CPI of health insurance, 2003–2019

ONS
WHO
HSE
OECD
NHS Digital
Eurostat Database
John Hopkins

General health in the UK

Life expectancy: 81.15 years on average (2020). Of those babies born in 2018, on average, males can expect to live to 87.6 years and females to 90.2 years.
Healthy life expectancy: The age up to which people can expect to live healthily is 63.1 for men and 63.6 for women.
UK health spending: £214.4 billion was spent on health care by the government in 2018/2019. This means that £3,227 was spent per person.
Fertility rate: The UK’s fertility rate is 1.7, which can be compared to the EU’s average of 1.6. The perfect fertility rate is 2.1, which is when each generation replaces itself.
Deaths: During the first 6 months of 2019, there were 270,762 deaths in the UK. This is compared to 2020, which had 333,233 registered deaths, 12% more than in 2019.
Alcohol: 57% of adults (aged 16+) in the UK drink alcohol.
Smoking: 16.6% of adults (aged 18+) in the UK smoke daily.
Obesity: In 2018, 67% of adult males and 60% of adult females were overweight or obese in the UK.

Number of hospital beds in the UK

With the number of coronavirus cases increasing fast, there has been a lot of speculation about hospital capacity in the UK. As of 2020, there is an average of 127,708 hospital beds available per night across Britain’s 1,257 hospitals. This means that there is one hospital bed for every 430 Brits, which is 47% fewer beds compared to the year 2000.

127,708

In 2020, there were an average of 127,708 hospital beds available per night. This means there is one hospital bed for every 430 Brits.

1,257

There are 1,257 hospitals in the UK.

Hospital beds per 1,000 citizens

Even though the number of hospital beds isn’t that high, Brits do seem to have confidence that the NHS will be able to take care of the population in a scenario where the coronavirus outbreak results in a higher need for care.

Confidence in the NHS

Life expectancy

In the UK, females have a longer life expectancy than males, at 82.9 years and 79.3 years respectively. Explore the table below to see how life expectancy has changed from 2013-2015 to 2016-2018 and which regions have the highest life expectancy.

Across most regions in the UK, the average life expectancy has increased, but nowhere has seen a bigger increase than London, with the average life expectancy now 25 weeks longer than it was in 2013-2015. However, in Scotland, the average life expectancy has decreased by 2.9 weeks on average.

Life expectancy comparison for males and females in UK regions, 2013-2015 and 2016-2018 compared

Region	Male life expectancy in 2016-2018 (years)	Change since 2013-2015 (weeks)	Female life expectancy in 2016-2018 (years)	Change since 2013-2015 (weeks)	Average change for both males and females (weeks)
UK	79.3	7.4	82.9	4.6	6.0
England	79.6	8.8	83.2	5.4	7.1
North East	77.9	3	81.7	7.3	5.2
North West	78.3	9.9	81.9	4.7	7.3
Yorkshire and the Humber	78.7	5.5	82.4	4.3	4.9
East Midlands	79.4	7.9	82.9	-2.2	2.9
West Midlands	78.9	6.5	82.7	-0.4	3.1
East	80.3	-0.6	83.7	1	0.2
London	80.7	25.6	84.5	24.5	25.1
South East	80.7	9.9	84.1	7.1	8.5
South West	80.2	5.5	83.8	-1	2.3
Wales	78.3	-6	82.3	1.7	-2.2
Scotland	77.1	-3	81.1	-2.7	-2.9
Northern Ireland	78.7	18.9	82.4	4.2	11.6

Death statistics

There were over 541,500 deaths in the UK in 2018, an increase of 1.6% from 2017 and the highest annual number of deaths since 1999 (553,500).

541,589

deaths were registered in the UK in 2018, up 1.6% from 2017.

Top causes of death in the UK

Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease: 13% of all deaths registered were due to one of the two and they are the leading cause of death for women. In total, 51,407 deaths were reported due to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease in 2018.
Ischaemic heart diseases: 23,662 deaths.
Cerebrovascular diseases: 20,523 deaths.
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 18,783 deaths.
Influenza and pneumonia: 17,614 deaths.

12.8%

of deaths in the UK were caused by dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Mental health

Major depression is thought to be the second leading cause of disability worldwide and a major contributor to suicide and ischaemic heart disease. Below are some more stats regarding mental health in the UK.

1 in 6 people experienced a common mental health problem within the last week.
1 in 5 women are reported to have mental health problems.
1 in 8 men are reported to have mental health problems.
There were 6,507 suicides in the UK in 2018, almost 700 more than in 2017 (5,821).
Three-quarters of these suicides in the UK were by men.

Alcohol consumption

It’s no secret that the UK has a strong drinking culture, but just how much of a problem is it?

There were 337,000 alcohol-related hospital admissions in 2018, 2% of overall hospital admissions.
Alcohol-specific deaths are higher among men, in fact, they are 55% more common in men than in women (since 2001).
There were 5,698 alcohol-specific deaths in 2018, 2% less than in 2017 (5,843).
57% of the UK adult population drink alcohol, a total of 29.2 million people.

But how do these figures stack up against the rest of the world? The UK ranks 17th for alcohol consumption across Europe, while France, Ireland and Germany all rank within the top 10. See the table below for the top 20 countries.

Country	Alcohol consumption in people aged 15+ (litres per capita)
Latvia	12.6
Austria	12.2
Czech Republic	11.8
France	11.6
Lithuania	11.2
Russia	11.2
Ireland	11.0
Luxembourg	11.0
Germany	10.8
Hungary	10.7
Poland	10.7
Portugal	10.4
Spain	10.4
Estonia	10.1
Slovak Republic	10.1
Slovenia	10.0
United Kingdom	9.8
Denmark	9.7
Australia	9.5
Belgium	9.4

Smoking

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. 16.6% of the adult population smokes daily, which means the UK ranks 20th out of 35 countries compared on their smoking habits. The country with the lowest percentage of smokers is Costa Rica, where 4.2% of people smoke on a daily bases. The country with the highest percentage of daily smokers is Indonesia, where 39.9% of adults smoke daily.

Percentage of smoking population in different countries

Smoking
Table

Country	Percentage of population that smokes daily
Indonesia	39.90%
Greece	35%
Russia	26.70%
Turkey	26.50%
France	25.40%
China (People's Republic of)	24.70%
Chile	24.50%
Spain	22.10%
Czech Republic	21.10%
Italy	19.20%
Switzerland	19.10%
South Africa	19%
Germany	18.80%
Japan	17.80%
Korea	17.50%
Estonia	17.20%
Israel	16.90%
Denmark	16.90%
Luxembourg	16.80%
United Kingdom	16.60%
Netherlands	15.50%
Belgium	15.40%
Ireland	14%
Finland	13%
New Zealand	12.50%
Australia	12.40%
Canada	11.30%
India	11.20%
United States	10.30%
Sweden	10.10%
Brazil	10.10%
Norway	9%
Iceland	8.20%
Mexico	7.60%
Costa Rica	4.20%

Obesity

26% of UK adults are obese, according to recent government reports. The stats below explore just how bad the obesity figures in the UK are.

64% of UK adults were overweight or obese in 2017.
11,117 hospital admissions were directly attributable to obesity in 2018/2019, an increase of 4% from 2017/2018.
There were 876,000 hospital admission where obesity was reported as a factor in 2018/2019, up 23% from 2017/2018.
Overall, 67% of men and 60% of women are classified as overweight or obese.
20% of children in Year 6 are classified as obese.
67% of adults are considered active as per government guidelines.

26% of men and 29% of women

are obese.

Work-related accidents

581,000 workers sustained a non-fatal injury at work in 2018/2019, down from 621,000 in 2017/2018.
111 deaths were recorded from work-related accidents in 2019/2020 down from 147 in 2017/2018.
28.2 million days were lost to ill health and workplace injuries in 2018/2019.
£5.2 billion was the estimated loss due to workplace injury or sickness in 2017/2018.
1.4 million working people are suffering from a work-related illness.

581,000

injuries occurred at the workplace in 2018/2019, 40,000 less than in 2017/2018.

Coronavirus statistics (as of 23rd September 2021)

The COVID-19 pandemic has a fatality rate of around 2.8% in the UK and 3.4% globally according to John Hopkins data.
This is over 28 times higher than the death rate for the seasonal flu, which has a fatality rate of 0.1 on average.
In the UK, there are currently over 7.5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 135,455 people have died.
In total, over 4,705,111 people have died of COVID-19 worldwide.

COVID-19 testing

Graph

Since the start of 2021, the UK has administered an average of 12 thousand COVID-19 tests per day. In March 2021, the UK saw a sharp increase in the number of tests given per day, with a daily average of over 18 thousand for the majority of the month.

COVID-19 testing for travel

Unvaccinated Brits pay a total of £258 when heading to destinations on the amber list.
This means that the COVID-19 testing industry could make £231 million on average from unvaccinated Brits intending to travel within the next 3 months (September until November).
This means that the industry could make almost £924 million over the next year from unvaccinated Brits who intend to travel within the next 3 months.

How much does the average Brit pay for their COVID test?

Double vaccinated Brits are only required to take a lateral flow test when travelling to destinations on the green and amber list. Lateral flow tests can cost between £5-£30 from a variety of stores and online sellers.

For adults who have not had both doses of the vaccine or have chosen not to get vaccinated at all, a PCR test is still required for travel. The cost of all PCR tests required for travel could cost £258 on average when heading to countries on the amber list.

How much will COVID tests cost for Brits intending to travel?

According to our travel index survey results, 9% of the UK’s population intend to travel out of the country in the next 3 months (September until November). However, with 19% of over-16s double yet to be vaccinated as of September 2021 – this means that, of the 9% of Brits who intend to travel, 1.7% (170,000) are still unvaccinated. This indicates that the COVID test industry could make an average of £231 million by November 2021 if the number of unvaccinated Brits who intend to travel actually follow through on their holiday plans. Over the next year, this figure could grow to almost £924 million.

Population of those aged over 65 by region

Since the elderly are the most likely to be severely affected by COVID-19, the health of those over the age of 65 is at an increased risk. The map below outlines which UK regions have the most at-risk populations, with the South East leading the way.

Map
Table

Region	Population over 65 years
South West	1,230,200
South East	1,761,765
East of England	1,218,475
West Midlands	1,089,236
East Midlands	927,031
Yorshire and the Humber	1,016,336
North West	1,354,625
North East	522,372
Wales	651,993
Scotland	1,026,114
London	1,059,213

Population of different ages by region

Region	Aged 0 to 15	Aged 16 to 24	Aged 25 to 49	Aged 50 to 64	Aged 65+
East	1,200,983	606,654	1,979,269	1,195,833	1,218,475
East Midlands	893,824	540,945	1,502,305	940,044	927,031
London	1,834,795	933,076	3,659,254	1,421,743	1,059,213
North East	474,998	298,268	821,725	540,546	522,372
North West	1,394,951	794,224	2,339,740	1,408,553	1,354,625
Scotland	919,502	581,427	1,783,404	1,127,653	1,026,114
South East	1,755,267	950,440	2,897,660	1,768,493	1,761,765
South West	986,908	585,372	1,676,268	1,120,987	1,230,200
Wales	562,709	346,637	953,725	623,567	651,993
West Midlands	1,160,351	667,654	1,891,769	1,091,747	1,089,236
Yorkshire and the Humber	1,046,381	628,850	1,742,840	1,045,208	1,016,336