Nuffield Trust response to Public Health Grant allocations for 2025/26

Commenting on the boost to the public health grant, Nuffield Trust Chief Executive Thea Stein said:

“After years of arbitrary and irrational cuts, today's announcement of a 5.4% uplift to the Public Health Grant is a welcome move by government, backing up its promise to shift health care more into the community and focus on prevention. Public health support – from health visitors to sexual health and drug and alcohol services – can make a real difference to people's lives. But it has long been the poor relation to the NHS, suffering the largest fall in funding compared to other NHS services according to recent analysis [1].

“Ultimately, how far today's boost will really go depends on what happens to staff wages, which can quickly eat up funding in these services, and whether traditionally separate funding for drug and alcohol services sits within this extra money.”

Notes to Editors

[1] Recent Nuffield Trust analysis found that the largest decrease in funding across NHS sectors was in the local authority public health grant, which fell by a real-terms 21% between 2016/17 and 2022/23.