What health policy can the UK expect from its next government?

With less than three weeks until the election of a new government in Great Britain, the main political parties have announced their main campaign assumptions.

At a time when the nation’s public health system is grappling with massive waits for emergency care, elective procedures, dental procedures and more, each party’s health policy is of the utmost importance to voters.

In fact, health is often the most important issue for British society.

So who are the main parties in the UK and what are their health plans?

Main political parties

The three main parties are the Conservatives led by Rishi Sunak, the Labor Party led by Keir Starmer and the Liberal Democrats led by Ed Davey.

The Conservatives – often called “Tories” – had been in power for 14 years when Sunak called an early election last month. Although they won the last parliamentary elections in 2019 with a clear majority, the party’s population has declined sharply over the past three years. He traditionally falls on the right side of the political spectrum.

The left-wing Labor Party last led a government under Gordon Brown in 2010, when it lost to the Conservative Party’s David Cameron and the Liberal Democrats’ Nick Clegg. There has been significant upheaval within the party in recent years following the replacement of former leader Jeremy Corbyn by the more centrist Starmer.

The Liberal Democrats are a smaller, centrist party known for their pro-European values. Their popularity declined in the early 2010s when the Conservative-led coalition government significantly increased university fees.

But current leader Ed Davey’s acrobatic campaign (featuring roller coasters, obstacle course rides, paddle boards and dinosaur statues) captured the nation’s attention. Polls suggest the Libyan Democrats are on track to make significant gains, but are likely to remain dwarfed by the other two main parties.

What do the sites promise about health?

UK parties publish detailed manifestos setting out their policy proposals ahead of the general election.

According to their manifesto, the Conservatives want to increase the role of pharmacists as front-line healthcare providers, improve and expand GP facilities and build dozens of new community diagnostic centers.

They also say they will train tens of thousands of new nurses and doctors over the next five years, as well as more clinicians such as paramedics and dentists. The plan to reduce approximately 5,000 management positions is controversial.

The party says it is delivering on promises made by previous Conservative governments, building dozens of new hospital buildings promised by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2020 and implementing laws that effectively prevent many teenagers from ever buying tobacco products.

Labor says its government would provide 40,000 extra publicly funded surgeries, visits and tests a week to reduce waiting times.

The party promises to modernize digital healthcare systems, aging hospital assets and imaging technology, doubling the number of CT and MRI scanners.

It also pledges to make births safer and close the mortality gap between Black and Asian mothers and their white peers. Black and Asian women are currently at a much higher risk of dying in childbirth in the UK

Like the Conservatives, Labor plans to employ more dentists and provide more dental visits. The party also promises to hire thousands of additional mental health workers and address racial disparities in mental health corrections.

It wants to halve the gap in healthy life expectancy between people living in the most and least deprived areas by addressing the social determinants of health.

The Liberal Democrats are pledging to give people the right to see a GP during the week by recruiting 8,000 more GPs to do so.

They have similar goals for dentistry and cancer, promising that all cancer patients will start treatment within 62 days of urgent referral to hospital and ensuring that anyone who needs urgent or emergency dental treatment can see a publicly funded dentist.

The party wants to reduce waiting times for mental health help by introducing community centers for young people and standard mental health check-ups.

Like Labor, the Lib Dems focus on population health and social determinants of health such as poverty. They want to increase healthy life expectancy by 5 years.

All three parties promise to invest in social care services and staff, with Labor even promising to create a “National Care Service” to complement the existing National Health Service.

What will actually happen?

Reducing major waiting periods for elective and emergency care is likely to be a key goal of any new government.

Pre-election polls strongly point to a Labor victory and a significant gain for the Liberal Democrats. It is therefore reasonable to assume that Labor’s policies should be watched. But whoever gets into parliament, it is much more difficult to predict how closely they will stick to their manifesto.

The Nuffield Trust health advisory team say all three sites are promising more than they can realistically fund. Many proposed policies will likely be scaled down or simply never come to the table.