It has grown in real terms, but not as fast as either demand or costs. Healthcare inflation is very high, and greatly outpaces the CPI index that we use for 're

It has grown in real terms, but not as fast as either demand or costs. Healthcare inflation is very high, and greatly outpaces the CPI index that we use for 'real-terms' comparisons. Basically, the same funding in 'real-terms' doesn't buy you the same level of care as last year in any country. Plus Britain is getting somewhat older, and somewhat sicker (partly because of medical advances meaning that previously-fatal conditions are now chronic and need ongoing treatment). And we can treat more now, so there is more demand. Bluntly, the proportion of GDP which needs to be allocated to healthcare to maintain a good quality service is rising unsustainably in all countries. The NHS is beating CPI inflation (and in doing so doing way better than other parts of government: local government has seen >25% real terms cuts, which has trashed the social care system amongst other things) but not nearly enough to keep up.