Department of Health and Social Care: Social Media
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many social media accounts his Department operates; and how much his Department spent on social media (a) subscriptions and (b) advertisements on each social media platform in each of the last three years.
Answered by Karin Smyth
The Department operates 25 social media accounts in total. Of these, seven are Department-branded accounts, including two specifically focused on adult social care recruitment. The remaining 18 accounts are operated by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) and are branded according to specific public health campaigns, such as Better Health, Start for Life, Couch to 5K, and FRANK. These accounts operate across various platforms including Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, and Strava.
In terms of social media subscriptions, the Department maintains one premium subscription on X for social listening purposes.
The following table shows the Department's social media advertising spend across platforms for the last three financial years:
Platform | 2021/22 (£) | 2022/23 (£) | 2023/24 (£) |
Meta | 2,887,477 | 1,461,522 | 1,475,286 |
790 | 22,459 | 7,739 | |
Nextdoor | N/A | N/A | 129,908 |
341,329 | 116,299 | 140,685 | |
Snapchat | 369,188 | 450,694 | 543,388 |
N/A | N/A | N/A | |
N/A | N/A | 158,626 | |
Total | 3,598,784 | 2,050,974 | 2,455,632 |
Source: Department of Health and Social Care
Note: These figures include spending across Departmental and OHID accounts. Some advertisements were run from NHS England accounts but were funded by the Department/OHID. YouTube advertising spend is not included as this is categorised as online video rather than social media advertising.
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