The next Labour Government will deliver a new 10-year plan for
the NHS, including one of the biggest expansions of the NHS
workforce in history, higher standards for patients, and a new
model of care.
Labour will ensure fewer patients need to go to hospital,
shifting resources to social care, GPs, care at home and mental
health services, reducing the cost of hospital care in the
long-term.
There are currently more patients waiting for treatment than ever
in the history of the NHS. Heart attack and stroke victims wait
an hour for an ambulance. Every month, tens of thousands of
patients are spending entire days waiting in A&E. Hospitals
are overwhelmed with patients who are fit to leave or wouldn’t
need to be there in the first place if they could access
healthcare earlier.
Promising to be “the shop steward for patients”, Streeting
pledged to introduce better choice and service, including
face-to-face appointments and seeing the same doctor each
appointment for those who want to. Labour will also make it
easier to book appointments so that “the days of waiting on the
phone at 8am to book an appointment with your GP
will be over.”
Earlier this week, Shadow Chancellor, , announced one of the biggest
expansions of doctor and nurse numbers in the history of the NHS,
committing Labour to:
- Doubling the number of medical school places to 15,000 a year
- Doubling the number of district nurses qualifying each year
- Training 5,000 new health visitors a year
- Creating 10,000 more nursing and midwifery clinical
placements each year
- A long-term workforce plan for the NHS, with independent
workforce projections, new career paths into the NHS, and new
types of health and care professionals
Labour will pay for the expansion by reintroducing the 45p
additional rate of income tax, paid by those earning more than
£150,000 a year.
, Labour’s Shadow Health and Social Care
Secretary, said:
“More doctors, more nurses, lower waiting times, higher standards
for patients - that’s the Labour pledge at the next general
election.
“Alongside investment will come the change and modernisation that
the public are crying out for.
“Voters won’t accept pouring money into 20thcentury
healthcare that isn’t fit for the future.
“The next Labour Government will agree a 10-year plan with the
NHS to shift the focus of healthcare out of the hospital and
into the community.”
Ends
Notes
- There were 415,000 delayed discharges in August, when a
patient is fit to leave hospital but cannot, often due to lack of
care in the community.
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/hospital-discharge-data/
- The latest figures show there are a record-high of 132,000
staff vacancies in the NHS
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-vacancies-survey/april-2015---june-2022-experimental-statistics
- There are 6.94 million patients waiting for NHS treatment, a
record high. 378,00 have been waiting more than one year.
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/rtt-waiting-times/rtt-data-2022-23/
- Ambulance response times for conditions like heart attacks
and strokes were an hour on average in July.
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/08/20220811-Statistical-Note-AQI.pdf
