13 Jun The Age of Starmer?
As the Labour Party met in Manchester, and listened to powerful and emotive stories from voters, including from a terminal cancer patient, Nathaniel, who wondered “what might have been” had he received cancer treatment on the NHS earlier, the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, took to the stage to promise an end to “sticking plaster politics”.
The party’s 132-page manifesto, published today, goes further in pledging to end the Conservatives’ “sticking plaster patch-up” of the health service, and “build an NHS fit for the future”.
The proposals are drastically different to 2019, when the then Labour leader published its Medicines for the Many proposals, which promised to fundamentally alter the NHS and the life sciences system that serves it. The Shadow Health and Care Secretary, Wes Streeting, has since refuted much of the Corbyn-era dogma surrounding the NHS. He has had some hard truths not only for the NHS, but for the Labour Party faithful, who hold the national health service in such reverence.
There was an early leak that the final draft of the manifesto did not include the statement: “the NHS is not for sale”, causing concern on the left of the party, despite the line being in earlier policy drafts. Indeed, one of the most contentious elements of Streeting’s agenda is the use of the private sector to relieve chronic waiting lists. The manifesto, though, is clear that Labour is committed to the NHS “be[ing] available, free for all.”
The challenges facing the health service, beyond the ideological, are vast. Just this week, the head of the NHS, Amanda Pritchard, warned that the NHS is in danger of becoming an “expensive safety net” if government and society do not “grasp the nettle” over increased funding and tougher prevention. The NHS, Prichard warned, “[is] damaged but not destroyed”.
Labour has similarly echoed that analysis, labelling the NHS as “clearly broken” and that a “two-tier system”, has been created over the past 14-years between those that can afford to opt-in privately, and those waiting on “record” waiting lists.
Part of the cure that the Labour Party has prescribed is an NHS innovation and adoption strategy in England. This will include a plan for procurement, giving a clearer route to get products into the NHS, coupled with reformed incentive structures to drive innovation and faster regulatory approval for new technology and medicines. The party wants to harness the power of technologies like AI to transform the speed and accuracy of diagnostic services, introduce a new Fit For the Future fund to double the number of CT and MRI scanners, allowing the NHS to catch cancer and other conditions earlier.
The manifesto reiterates the party’s ongoing commitment to the founding principles of the NHS, and repeats many of its pledges through its Five Missions, moving the health system to “a more preventative system” and away from a “sickness service”. For patients, such as Nathaniel, who will not see the next election, there is much to do to ensure the NHS is fit for the future.