Over half of the public expect NHS and social care services to worsen over next year
As the party conference season gathers pace, new polling from Ipsos and the Health Foundation shows that the public wants additional investment in the NHS. With neither of the two main parties having yet committed to the future funding increases the NHS will need, the findings underline that the parties risk being out of step with public opinion.
According to the survey, four out of five people support additional funding for the NHS. This includes a clear majority across the political spectrum, including among the 93 per cent of people planning to vote Labour, nine tenths that plan to vote Liberal Democrat, 60 per cent of Conservative voters and over three fifths of ‘Other’ voters. Overall support has remained unchanged from November 2022, despite continuing concerns about the cost of living.
When asked what they thought were the top priorities for the NHS, two fifths of people said addressing the pressure or workload on staff, almost two fifths said increasing the number of staff in the NHS and more than three tenths said improving waiting times for routine services such as diagnostic tests or operations.
The public’s views about the future of the NHS, social care and public health are pessimistic, although slightly less so than 6 months ago. Over half of people expect the general standard of NHS and social care services to get worse over the next year, while exactly half think the public’s overall health and wellbeing will get worse.
On social care, the public’s top priorities include 42 per cent that say improving pay and conditions for social care staff, 37 per cent back making it easier for health and social care services to work together and 32 would like to see increased the number of staff in social care.
The Health Foundation is concerned that while both parties acknowledge the importance of social care, neither has a detailed plan as yet for addressing the decades-long neglect of the care sector.
Tim Gardner, Assistant Director of Policy at the Health Foundation said: “This survey shows a clear majority of people across party lines want more funding for the NHS, better support for staff and access to the health service, and for the government to take more action to address the issues that lead to preventable poor health. In short, voters want to see government doing more on health and social care.
“Yet neither of the two main parties have yet committed to the future funding increases the NHS will need. Neither has a detailed plan for ending decades of neglect of the social care sector. And neither party has a comprehensive policy agenda for preventing people falling into poor health.
“With the clock ticking to the next election, both the main parties risk being out of step with public opinion on health and social care.”
The Health Foundation has published new analysis which projects the cost of growing demand for adult social care in England and the government funding required to tackle some of the major challenges facing the social care system.
