Public health services such as sexual health and drug and alcohol programmes have seen their budgets reduced by more than other health care services, a think tank has revealed.
The Nuffield Trust found that NHS expenditure rose by an average of 3.1% annually over the past decade.
However, the health think tank also found that how this growth has been shared between different types of service ‘varies quite radically.’
The largest decrease in funding was in the local authority public health grant, which fell by a real-terms 21% between 2016/17 and 2022/23, despite a brief boost during the pandemic.
Nuffield Trust senior policy analyst Sally Gainsbury commented: ‘Quite simply successive Governments have cut back on the very services that are needed to support the ambition of moving care out of hospital.’
