Keir Starmer, Britain’s new Prime Minister, and his wife Victoria greet supporters as they arrive at 10 a.m. … [+]
Britain’s Labor Party won a historic landslide election on July 4, ending fourteen years of Conservative Party rule. One of the key objectives of the new Labor government is to revitalize the National Health Service by reducing waiting times for diagnosis and treatment and improving public health outcomes. But returning the NHS to a more functionally optimal state faces significant challenges, not least in terms of funding at a time when the economy is weak and the government has promised no new tax rises.
The NHS is a system of publicly (tax) funded healthcare services in the four countries of the United Kingdom, providing free care to all residents at the point of delivery. The NHS was the first healthcare system of its kind to be based on the principle of universal free access in 1948. The ability to pay no longer stood in the way of British residents receiving medically necessary healthcare. The inequalities in care provision, which had long plagued the British healthcare system, were significantly reduced.
The NS is still very popular among the British public, according to a comprehensive 2023 survey in which 72% of respondents said the healthcare system is ‘critical to British society’ and that ‘everything must be done to preserve it’. However, 77% believe the NHS is not prepared to meet the increasing health demands of an aging population. And 51% believed the NHS is not ready to keep up with new medical technologies to improve patient care.
For decades the NHS has been plagued by problems, many of which can be put down to the fact that it is a relatively cash-strapped system. Britain spends less on healthcare per capita than most other countries. Taking into account relative prices between countries, annual healthcare expenditure per capita in Great Britain will increase by $5,493 in 2022 less than half of U.S. spending, $12,555, the Peterson-KFF analysis shows.
Severe budget constraints have led to record numbers of patients –7.7 million people—on waiting lists for diagnoses and treatment. In addition, the relatively poor pay for current and prospective physicians and staff means that the system suffers from chronic unresolved wage disputes and labor shortages.
More and more people are choosing care in private clinics and hospitals to avoid long waiting times. Figures tracking private healthcare use in 2023 shows a record number of procedures worth £4 billion, often in the form of diagnostic screenings and elective surgeries.
Nevertheless, private health insurance covers only about 10% of the population. As such, the private sector still does not play a substantial role. The vast majority of citizens and residents depend on the NHS for care.
Ahead of the election, the Labor Party unveiled a new ‘Fit for the Future Fund’, which promised to supply the NHS with state-of-the-art equipment to help reduce waiting times. Labor promised one additional 40,000 operations, scans (screenings) and appointments per week in England by introducing more weekend services and using the private sector where necessary. As part of being mission To “get the NHS back on its feet”, Labor proposed a £1.1 ($1.4) billion package to recruit and train more nursing staff.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces a daunting task of reducing waiting times and improving healthcare quality and outcomes as the UK economy is not growing, meaning the country will struggle to get the money it needs to rebuild the NHS.
During the election campaign, Labor said the money would come from cracking down on a loophole in the tax system non-domicile tax arrangements for people who live in Great Britain but are not permanently established there. They currently only pay UK tax on money earned in the country, and can avoid paying it on their foreign income, allowing wealthy individuals living in Britain to choose the country with the lower taxes as their formal residence. Research from the London School of Economics shows that eliminating the special exception could save the government £3.2 billion annually.
In addition to higher spending, the new government plans to implement structural changes to the existing healthcare model. Shadow then Health Minister Wes Streeting warned in April that the NHS would not receive additional funding without what he called “major surgery” or reforms.
Streeting specifically highlighted the importance of the NHS shifting from an acute care model focused on late diagnosis and treatment, to one in which there is a greater focus on disease prevention and chronic care management at a local level.
That of the PvdA manifesto argues that the NHS “must move to a community health service, with more care delivered in local communities to detect problems earlier. To achieve this, we must shift resources to primary care and community services over time.” Here the aim is to ensure that the NHS does not become merely a ‘disease service, but is able to prevent ill health in the first place’.
The newly elected government’s ambitious plan to reform the NHS will inevitably face challenges. Yet there is consensus across the British political spectrum that reform is necessary. In a speech after the election, former Conservative health secretary Jeremy Hunt said encouraged the Labor government to “use their majority to deliver much-needed reforms to the NHS in a way that is sometimes difficult for Conservative governments.”