What the general election means for the NHS: focus on waiting times, timely diagnosis and treatment, innovation, recruitment, modernisation, new 'Fit for the Future' fund…

With the 2024 general election resulting in a Labour majority and Keir Starmer becoming Prime Minister, here's what it means for the NHS.

We previously reported highlights of Labour's manifesto on the National Health Service and have also explored the manifestos of the other major parties. For Labour, reducing NHS waiting times was key, along with moving away from “slow diagnosis and treatment” and modernising the NHS with a new “Fit for the Future” fund.

Looking more closely, Labour's manifesto sets out its ambition to “build back the country”, including a vision to put the NHS “at the forefront of healthcare again”. While the manifesto acknowledges the challenges facing the NHS, including the stresses of the pandemic and winter pressures, it states that Labour's ambition “doesn't just stop at returning the NHS to how it was before. Labour's mission is to build an NHS that is fit for the future. Investment alone will not be enough to tackle the challenges facing the NHS – it must go hand in hand with fundamental reform.”

This would see the focus shifted to prevention rather than viewing the NHS as a “sickness service”, with Labour stressing the need to focus on managing chronic long-term conditions alongside mental health, cancer, cardiovascular disease and suicide.

As part of its efforts to build a new NHS, the manifesto promises to “harness the power of technology such as AI to transform the speed and accuracy of diagnostic services,” stating that “a system that relies on pagers and fax machines is not fit for this decade, let alone the next.” A new “Fit for the Future” fund will see investment to double the health service's CT and MRI scanners, helping the NHS diagnose diseases more quickly. Labour commented that “cutting-edge scanners incorporating AI can find small tumours more quickly and effectively, saving lives.”

The party pointed to the “revolution taking place in data and life sciences” which it said “has the potential to transform healthcare in our country”, suggesting that COVID had demonstrated how a “strong mission-led industrial strategy” underpinned by collaboration between government, industry and academia could “turn the tide of the pandemic”. This is an approach Labour has committed to, and as part of its life sciences plan, the manifesto states its intention to develop an NHS innovation and deployment strategy in England, which will also include a procurement plan. This aims to provide a clearer route for introducing products into the NHS, along with “reformed incentive structures” designed to encourage innovation and speed up regulatory approval of new technologies and medicines.

The manifesto highlights the NHS App as part of its plans to maximise the UK's potential in clinical trials, with a focus on making the recruitment and enrolment process “more efficient and accessible” and encouraging people to take part in trials via the app. Labour also says it will “transform” the app by putting more information into patients' hands, such as local service performance information, reminders for vaccinations and health checks, and medical guidelines for treatment.

On waiting lists, Labour says its immediate priority in health is to “curb record waiting lists” and return to meeting the NHS performance standards, which expect patients to wait no more than 18 weeks after being referred for consultant-led treatment for non-urgent health conditions. The first step in the plan is to deliver two million extra NHS surgeries, scans and appointments per year, the equivalent of 4,000 new appointments per week. Labour plans to achieve this by encouraging staff to make extra out-of-hours appointments and by pooling resources between neighbouring hospitals to introduce shared waiting lists. Plans to utilise spare capacity in the independent sector to ensure faster diagnosis and treatment have also been highlighted.

The manifesto includes a section on getting healthcare closer to home, with Labour stating its intention to “reform” the primary care system by introducing “a modern appointment system that puts an end to the 8am rush”. There are also plans to ease pressure on GP practices by improving access to services and treatment through new routes, such as prescribing services provided by community pharmacists, greater self-referral and the ability for other professionals, such as opticians, to make direct referrals for specialist services and tests.

On social care, Labour will deliver a programme of reforms to create a national care service, delivered locally and based on the principle of “home first”, which emphasises people living independently for as long as possible.

Building on its pledge to support mental health, the manifesto also announced plans to develop Online Safety Bill, saying it will “move forward the provisions as quickly as possible and consider further measures to keep everyone safe online, particularly when using social media.” Additionally, Labour plans to give coroners more powers to access information held by tech companies in the event of a child's death.

Next to patient safety, Labour's manifesto specifically addresses children's health services, revealing plans to digitise child health red book records and improve support for new families.

Labour acknowledges that many NHS facilities are in a “dilapidated state” and is also committed to delivering a new hospitals programme.

Click here to read the Labour Party's full manifesto.

Sources 1/ https://Google.com/ 2/ https://htn.co.uk/2024/07/05/general-election-what-does-it-mean-for-the-nhs-cutting-nhs-waiting-times-timely-diagnosis-and-treatment-innovation-and-adoption-and-modernising-the-nhs-with-a-new-fit-for-the-future-fund/ The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article

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