How many hospitals in the UK?
By Gemma Raw
The NHS is one of the largest employers in the world and the biggest in Europe and there are approximately 1,257 hospitals in the UK.
There are over 1.2 million full-time equivalent staff working in NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups* in England. In June 2021 there were 123,727 doctors, 332,341 nursing staff (including midwives and health visitors) and 33,907 managers in the NHS.
*Clinical commissioning group meaning: You may have heard people mention CCGs, or Clinical Commissioning Groups. CCGs were established in 2012 and are responsible for planning most primary, community and hospital care services, including emergency care in their local areas. There are currently 106 CCGs in England (2021). However, there are plans to replace these with integrated care systems.
How many people use the NHS?
On a typical day...
More than 1 million people would attend a GP appointment
More than 250,000 people would attend an outpatient appointment
More than 30,000 people would call 999
Nearly 45,000 people would attend a major A&E department
Around 750 patients would go into critical care
Read more about NHS patient activity and how the NHS is funded.
What is the biggest hospital in the UK?
Manchester Royal Infirmary is the biggest hospital in the UK in terms of number of beds, with over 1,700 beds available. It's part of the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT), which is one of the largest acute trusts in the UK, employing over 20,000 staff.
The best hospitals in the UK
To find out how a hospital is performing, visit the Care Quality Commission (CQC) website. CQC is the regulator of health and social care in England which ensures that people receive safe and high-quality care.
In July 2022, the following NHS hospitals were rated overall Good by the CQC:
How many NHS trusts are there in the UK?
An NHS trust is a healthcare provider, set up to deliver hospital and community services, and other aspects of patient care. There are 219 trusts in the UK (2021), including 10 ambulance trusts. However, this number doesn’t match the number of hospitals; some trusts run more than one hospital, for example MFT runs nine hospitals in total.
NHS vacancy rates in 2022
The NHS is never short of opportunities. There were 105,855 NHS vacancies in March 2022 (that's an extra 29,773 vacancies compared to 2021!)
For information on NHS careers, read our collection of blogs.
