The UK National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA) assesses the status, trends, ecosystem services and future prospects of eight broad habitat types, including wetlands. Despite confounding factors such as an inconsistent inventory of wetlands, fragmented policy instruments and conflicts with agricultural land use, the NEA has enabled an initial assessment of the extent and condition of the current wetland resource in the UK and the degree of loss of different wetland types and their broad implications not only for biodiversity, but for the delivery of a wide range of ecosystem services. It has also highlighted some of the ways in which wetland ecosystem services can be beneficially exploited, for example as buffer zones, as a means to protect freshwater resources or in flood risk management, as well as the trade-offs inherent in different land uses. We summarise some of the findings of the NEA in relation to some key challenges of linking wetland science to policy.