15 Jul 2024
How The Labour Government Plans to Restore The Crippling NHS
As of July 5th 2024, the title of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom fell to Sir Keir Starmer, following the general election where the Labour Party won a decisive victory over the Conservative Party, previously led by Rishi Sunak. As of that moment, Starmer and his Labour party have already began making waves in the Government, moving on their plans to address key concerns such as the crippling NHS.
The National Health Service (NHS) has been facing significant challenges over the past few years, from long waiting lists to staffing shortages and outdated infrastructure. However, as the Labour government led by Keir Starmer heads up the UK Government, they have devised a comprehensive plan to address these issues and restore the NHS to its full potential.
This blog outlines Labour's strategy to rebuild and modernise the NHS, ensuring it can continue to provide high-quality healthcare to all.
Let’s explore what’s on Labour’s agenda.
Reducing waiting times and improving access
One of Labour's primary goals is to drastically reduce waiting times for NHS services, as they aim to ensure that patients wait no longer than 18 weeks for non-urgent consultant-led treatment - a standard previously met under Labour's governance.
To achieve this, Labour plans to deliver an additional two million operations, scans and appointments each year in England, and this will involve incentivising NHS staff to conduct extra appointments outside regular hours and utilising shared waiting lists across hospitals to expedite patient care.
What’s more, Labour will leverage spare capacity in the independent sector to speed up diagnosis and treatment processes also.
Tackling the workforce crisis
Addressing the workforce crisis is essential for improving NHS services, and Labour plans to implement regular, independent workforce planning across health and social care to ensure staffing levels meet demand.
Their long-term workforce plan includes training more healthcare professionals and offering better pay and working conditions to attract and retain staff, though Labour also aims to reset relations with NHS staff, moving away from the previous government's approach that led to numerous strikes, therefore ensuring a more harmonious working environment.
Modernising infrastructure and technology
The Labour government openly recognises that the NHS's reliance on outdated technology is a significant barrier to efficient healthcare delivery, and in an effort to combat this, they will introduce a ‘Fit For the Future’ fund to double the number of CT and MRI scanners, incorporating advanced AI technology to improve early diagnosis of conditions such as cancer.
Labour is also committed to the New Hospitals Programme, ensuring that NHS estates are modernised and fit for purpose, however they do agree that the global COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of a mission-driven industrial strategy.
As a result, Labour plans to develop an NHS innovation and adoption strategy, which includes a clearer procurement process and reformed incentives for technological and medicinal advancements. Their goal is that by enhancing the efficiency of clinical trials and leveraging digital tools such as the NHS app, Labour aims to place the UK at the forefront of medical innovation and patient care.
Empowering patients and ensuring safety
Labour intends to put patients at the heart of healthcare decisions by transforming the NHS app to allow patients greater control over their health management, including access to medical guidelines and performance information on local services, with the plan that this will empower patients to hold healthcare providers accountable and make informed decisions about their care.
Safety, particularly in maternity care, is also a top priority, as Labour will train thousands of new midwives and set explicit targets to reduce maternal mortality rates among Black and Asian women, and also plan to digitise the Red Book record of children's health to enhance support for new families and improve vaccination rates.
As well as this, Labour is also focused on professionalising NHS management too, whereby they will implement professional standards and regulate NHS managers to ensure accountability and prevent serious misconduct and also plan to establish a Royal College of Clinical Leadership to advocate for clinicians' voices within the NHS.
Bringing healthcare closer to home
Labour envisions transforming the NHS into a Neighbourhood Health Service, focusing on delivering more care within local communities, with their new vision set to include training more GPs, ensuring face-to-face appointments for those who want them and modernising appointment booking systems, whilst also planning to develop a Community Pharmacist Prescribing Service to expand self-referral routes to alleviate pressure on GP surgeries.
As for social care, Labour aims to create a National Care Service with consistent standards across the country, whereby they will enhance local partnership working between the NHS and social care services, promoting a ‘home first’ principle to support independent living.
As a result, Labour will also establish a Fair Pay Agreement in adult social care to improve pay, conditions and training standards alike.
Improving mental health services
As Labour recognises the need for better mental health services, it aims to recruit 8,500 additional staff to support children and adults.
They will also establish Young Futures hubs to provide accessible mental health services in every community and modernise mental health legislation to ensure dignity and respect in treatment, using an approach which includes comprehensive measures to reduce waiting times and improve early intervention for mental health issues.
Public health initiatives
Preventative healthcare is a cornerstone of Labour’s strategy, and they plan to implement measures such as banning cigarette sales to future generations, restricting junk food advertising to children and integrating smoking cessation programs into hospital care.
What’s more, Labour also plan to address online safety, particularly for children, and reform gambling regulations to mitigate gambling-related harm.
Reducing health inequalities
Finally, Labour is committed to tackling health inequalities, aiming to half the gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and poorest regions, as well as commissioning a new HIV action plan to end new HIV cases by 2030 and prioritising women’s health as part of their NHS reforms.
To summarise, Labour's comprehensive plan is to restore focuses by creating a resilient and efficient NHS capable of delivering high-quality care to all. With these reforms, Labour seeks to ensure that the NHS remains a cherished institution that meets the needs of the nation now and in the future.
