With only a few weeks to go before Britain goes to the polls in the 2024 General Election, we thought we would explore some of the health pledges made by the main three parties (which were Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrats at time of writing!) It’s safe to say that all politicians, whatever their colours, have recognised that health and social care is a key battleground subject – and possibly the deciding factor for many voters. 

Whether it’s getting an NHS dentist, finally having an operation you’ve been waiting months or years for, or simply seeing your local GP, it’s likely that you, your friends and colleagues have all come into contact with the NHS in one way or another. But which party has the most creative, innovative policies? Which ideas are simply noise, and which might just work? In a strictly non-partisan way, and in the full knowledge that some of these things may change or be finessed when a new government actually starts work, here are some of the main takeaways for primary care which are likely to impact GP and dental practices. (Please note: this is not an exhaustive list of policies).

Labour

• Cut NHS waiting times with 40,000 more appointments every week, and take pressure off GP surgeries by creating a Community Pharmacist Prescribing Service. They'll also allow other professionals, like opticians, to make direct referrals to specialist services or tests, as well as expanding self-referral routes where appropriate.
• The NHS (Neighbourhood Health Service): centres in every neighbourhood which bring together a range of key health workers in one place, and put the focus on prevention at a local level, not just a national one.
• Greater use of tech: a catchy new investment pot known as the ‘Fit For The Future Fund’ aims to double the number of scanners that can detect cancer early, and put tech in patients’ hands so they do things like scan for kidney disease with results sent to smartphones. The theme of ‘taking back control’ of patients’ health is a key one here for Labour.
• Transform the much-maligned NHS app, putting patients in control of their own health to better manage their medicine, appointments, and health needs. This will include giving performance information on local services, and notifications of vaccinations and health checks. Patients will be able to see the medical guidelines for the treatment they should get, to hold health services to account and understand what their choices are
• Much-needed Mental Health measures: recruiting 8,500 extra mental health staff (funded again by closing tax loopholes) is a key pledge, and the party has taken care to focus on young people’s and adolescent mental health as a particular pinch point; every community will have a new mental health hub for 11-24 year-olds. This will be paid for by getting rid of the tax break for private schools and also private equity managers, which are likely to popular policies with many people.
• Bring back the family doctor by incentivising GPs to see the same patient, so ongoing or complex conditions are dealt with effectively.

Their other measures include key ideas for helping the dental and care sector:

• A new NCS (National Care Service), underpinned by national standards, delivering consistency of care across the country
• Dental Rescue Plan: They’ll introduce a supervised tooth-brushing scheme for 3- to 5-year-olds, targeting the areas of highest need. Labour then plan to create 700,000 new dental appointments every year, reform the much-criticised dental contract. Where will the funds come from? From the abolition of the ‘non-dom’ tax loophole, according to their manifesto. 

You can read their full manifesto here and their costings breakdown here.

Conservatives

The Conservatives did (finally) introduce a Long-Term Workforce Plan for the NHS last year. They are seeking to build on this by introducing policies which encourage staff retention as well as recruitment. GPs will be particularly interested in:

• Expanding Pharmacy First including for menopause support, contraception and treatment for chest infections, freeing up 20 million GP appointments a year.
• Building or modernising 250 GP surgeries, particularly in areas with new housing developments.
• Building 50 more Community Diagnostic Centres

Other pledges include:

• Overhaul the fit note process so that people are not being signed off sick as a default. Currently, 94% of fit notes are being signed off as ‘not fit for work’. The Tories say they will design a new system which moves the responsibility for issuing fit notes away from hard-pressed GPs towards specialist work and health professionals, and they will test integrating this with the new WorkWell service to provide tailored support to help people stay in or get back to work.
• Making sure local authorities use the new Infrastructure Levy to deliver the GP surgeries, roads and other local infrastructure needed to support homes.
• More funding: this has been a constant pledge pretty much every year and certainly every general election in living memory; the Conservatives pledge to pump another £6.6bn into the NHS and a similar amount (£7.5bn) for adult social care (which Boris Johnson also promised to ‘fix’ at the 2019 election).
• Social Care – the Tories will give local authorities a new multi-year settlement to implement their ideas for social care, and a cap on social care costs from October 2025. 
  40 new hospitals…still coming: this is another pledge from 2019 but the Conservatives are still promising that these will be built by 2030.
• Dental Recovery Plan will unlock 2.5 million more NHS dental appointments, through a patient premium to encourage dentists to take on new NHS patients. We will make further reforms to the dental contract to ensure its future, sustainability and we will ensure newly qualified, dentists have to work in the NHS for a number of years or pay back their training costs.
• Tech plays a big part: Make the NHS App the single front door for NHS services; Use AI to free up doctors’ and nurses’ time; Replace tens of thousands of outdated computers; Fund technology to help clinicians read MRI and CT scans more quickly and accurately.

You can read their full manifesto here and their manifesto Costings document here.

Liberal Democrats

The Liberal Democrats have plenty of policies geared around improving things for GPs and GP staff. Their plans below will all be made possible by training, recruiting and retaining more GPs and making smarter use of their time, says the party. The details of their GP-focused provisions are:

• Give everyone the right to see a GP or the most appropriate practice staff member within seven days, or within 24 hours if they urgently need to, by:
  • Increasing the number of full-time equivalent GPs by 8,000, half by boosting recruitment and half from retaining more experienced GPs.
  • Giving everyone 70+ and everyone with long-term health conditions access to a named GP.
  • Freeing up GPs’ time by giving more prescribing rights and public health advisory services to qualified pharmacists, nurse practitioners and paramedics.
  • Introducing a universal 24/7 GP booking system.
  • Removing top-down bureaucracy to let practices hire the staff they need and invest in training.
  • Establishing a Strategic Small Surgeries Fund to sustain services in rural and remote areas.
• Dentistry reform: the liberal democrats recognise this for the hot topics that it is, and ending DIY dentistry and ‘dental deserts’ is a priority.
  • Improve early access to mental health services by:
  • Opening walk-in hubs for children and young people in every community
  • Extending young people’s mental health services up to the age of 25 to end
    the drop-off experienced by young people transitioning to adult services.
  • Creating a statutory, independent Mental Health Commissioner to represent patients, their families and carers.
• Another common theme is to prevent ill health in the first place and help people spend more years of their life in good health by:
  • Increasing the Public Health Grant, with a proportion of the extra funding set aside for those experiencing the worst health inequalities to co-produce plans for their communities.
• Establishing a ‘Health Creation Unit’ in the Cabinet Office to lead work across government to improve the nation’s health and tackle health inequalities.
• Train, recruit and retain the doctors, nurses and other NHS staff we need, including by:
  
  • Establishing a properly independent pay review body.
  • Retaining more staff across the NHS through a ten-year retention plan.
  • Making flexible working a day-one right and expanding access to flexible, affordable childcare
  • Fixing the work visa system and exempting NHS and care staff from the Immigration Skills Charge
  • Ending the false economy of spending money on agency workers and encouraging the use of flexible staff banks.

You can read their full manifesto here and their costings document here.

Look out for our next article which will cover the other parties who you can vote for at the forthcoming elections, and some of their health pledges.