Labour Party general election manifesto 2024: NHS Confederation analysis

The Labour Party has pledged to cut NHS waiting times, and has made this one of its six ‘first steps for change’; its most succinct and condensed offer to the electorate. 

To do this, Labour has set out that it will pay staff overtime rates to do extra shifts out of hours, which will be costed by efforts to scrap non-dom status to recoup more tax from the wealthiest. 

Labour has also said it will set up shared waiting lists and drive more collaboration between hospitals. 

The Labour Party manifesto commits to the publication of regular, independent workforce planning, across health and social care. It has also committed to delivering the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan. The manifesto also commits to ‘resetting’ relations with NHS staff. 

Following the headline theme from its health mission launched in January 2023, the manifesto reiterates that “the National Health Service needs to move to a Neighbourhood Health Service”, with more care delivered in local communities. 

As part of this, the Labour Party has pledged to train “thousands more GPs” and guarantee a face-to-face appointment for people that want one. The manifesto also sets out plans to create a Community Pharmacist Prescribing Service to give more independent prescribing rights to pharmacists to reduce pressure on GPs. 

Elsewhere, the manifesto sets out the plans to trial Neighbourhood Health Centres to bring together a range of healthcare professionals across physical and mental health under one roof. 

On social care, the Labour Party manifesto said the party would seek to “build consensus for the longer-term reform needed to create a National Care Service”, sidestepping the issue of funding. Instead, it set out a pledge to introduce national standards to deliver consistency of care. The manifesto also states an intention to “develop local partnership working between the NHS and social care on hospital discharge” and to “enhance partnership working across employers, workers, trade unions and local government to establish a Fair Pay Agreement in adult social care. The Labour Party would also ‘task regulators with assessing the role social care workers can play in basic health treatment.”

The key mental health pledges in the Labour Party manifesto are to recruit an additional 8,500 mental health staff in their first term if elected. It has also pledged to set up open access Young Futures Hubs to provide mental health support to children and young people in every community. 

The manifesto also commits to modernising the Mental Health Act. While not in the manifesto, Shadow Secretary of State Wes Streeting MP has previously said Labour ensure the legislation was in their first King’s Speech, if elected.

The manifesto has an explicit section on reducing health inequalities, with a pledge to close the Black and Asian maternal mortality gap. 

Additionally, the Labour Party has set the objective of halving the gap in healthy life expectancy between the areas of highest and lowest deprivation in England at the centre of their health mission. They have also pledged to “prioritise women’s health.”

There are also a number of wider policies targeted at the social determinants of health in the Labour Party manifesto – banning vapes from being advertised to under 16s, ensuring all hospitals integrate “opt-out” smoking cessation interventions in to routine care, a ban on junk food advertising to under-16s and a ban on the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks to under-16s. There are also pledges to build on the One Safety Act to keep children safer online, and reform gambling regulation.

First announced at Labour Party conference in September 2023, the manifesto commits to a “Fit for the Future” fund to double the number of CT and MRI scanners, with a particular driver being to catch cancer earlier. It has also committed to delivering the New Hospitals Programme. 

As part of their industrial strategy, the Labour Party has said it would develop an NHS innovation and adoption strategy in England, including a plan for procurement, giving a clearer route to get products into the NHS along with reformed incentive structures. It has said it would use the NHS app to offer more people the chance to participate in clinical trials, making them more efficient and accessible. 

Further on the NHS app, the manifesto commits to making local service performance information available via it, along with medical guidelines for the treatment they should get. The Labour Party has also pledged to digitise the Red Book, giving parents access more support and clarity on vaccination schedules and other checks. 

The Labour Party manifesto sets out a Dentistry Rescue Plan which would provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments. It would also recruit more dentists to areas that need them most – so-called ‘dental deserts’ – by incentivising them through reform to the dental contract. The manifesto also says they will seek to fundamentally move to a focus in prevention and retention of dentists. 

Elsewhere, the manifesto commits to the introduction of a supervised tooth-brushing scheme for 3- to 5-year-olds targeting areas of highest need to reduce the number of children needing hospital treatment for tooth decay. In his speech at the manifesto launch, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer shard his experience of visiting Alder Hey Children’s hospital earlier this year, where he was horrified to learn that the most common reason for children aged between five and nine to need an operation is because of tooth decay. 

As set out in their letter to the NHS Confederation and NHS Providers last year, the Labour Party has said it will implement professional standards and regulate NHS managers, whilst also establishing a Royal College of Clinical Leadership. In this section, the manifesto asserts that managers need support as well as accountability. 

Like the Conservative Party, the Labour Party has said it will work to implement the recommendations of the Cass Review.