NHS Health Survey for England, 2021 part 2

27 June, 2023

'Health Surveys for England' are designed to estimate the proportion of people in England who have health conditions, and the prevalence of risk factors and behaviours associated with certain health conditions, as well as to monitor trends.

NHS England have published the second part of their 2021 Health Survey for England (HSE), in May 2023, which covers the following topics:

  • Adults’ health covering general health, diabetes, cholesterol and hypertension
  • Loneliness and wellbeing
  • Physical activity
  • Social care for older adults
  • Gambling

HSEs are designed to estimate the proportion of people in England who have health conditions, and the prevalence of risk factors and behaviours associated with certain health conditions, as well as to monitor trends.

Key findings include that 77% of adults reported good or very good general health. 6% reported bad or very bad health and 40% of adults had at least one longstanding illness or condition. In terms of loneliness and wellbeing 27% of adults reported that they never felt lonely. However,

22% of adults felt lonely at least some of the time, including 6% who reported that they often or always felt lonely.

It is to be noted that some of the methodologies in this report vary from previous years due to the covid pandemic and so caution should be used in comparing the data with previous years – detailed information on this is included in the Methods report.

The first part of the survey, published In December 2022, featured the categories ‘smoking, e-cigarettes and alcohol’ and ‘overweight and obesity’.

To read the survey, please visit the NHS Digital website.