UK support for NHS founding principles falls, study finds

Public support for the founding principles of the NHS has fallen across the United Kingdom between 2021 and 2025.

The three principles are that the health service should be free to use, available to everyone and funded through taxation. Backing for each of them declined across the population as a whole, with the exception of a small rise in support for tax funding among millennials, according to analysis reported by The Guardian.

The analysis, by the King's Fund, examined British Social Attitudes survey data for five age groups: Gen Z, born 1997-2012, millennials, born 1981-1996, Gen X, born 1965-1980, boomers, born 1946-1964, and people born before the Second World War.

Support for the idea that the NHS should be available to everyone fell in all five groups. The largest declines were among the oldest respondents. Among people born pre-war, the share saying the NHS should be available to everyone fell from 87.1% in 2021 to 73.2% in 2025, a drop of 13.9 percentage points. Among boomers, it fell from 83.1% to 71.2%, a drop of 11.9 points.

Support for care being free of charge remains broad. Between 85% and 92% of people across the age groups continue to back that principle.

The sharpest shift on funding came among the youngest adults. Support among Gen Z for the NHS remaining tax-funded fell by 11.2 percentage points between 2021 and 2025. At 74.1%, Gen Z support for tax funding now sits below that of all other groups, where at least 80% back the principle.

The findings come after a period of low public satisfaction with the health service. In 2025, 51% of respondents to the British Social Attitudes survey said they were dissatisfied with the NHS, according to the Nuffield Trust. The NHS Constitution for England states that the NHS is a national service funded through national taxation and accountable to the public, communities and patients it serves.