Labour Party Manifesto Key Points
Reduce Waitlists (Major Focus – part of the 6 ‘first steps’)
• 40,000 more appointments each week by …
o Incentivising medical workers to work in the evenings and on the weekends.
o Sharing waiting lists across neighbouring hospitals.
o Utilising capacity in the independent sector.
• A wait of no-longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment for non-urgent health conditions.
Procurement & Prescriptions
• Develop 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.
• Create a Community Pharmacist Prescribing Service, granting more pharmacists independent prescribing rights.
• Scrap short funding cycles for key R&D institutions in favour of ten-year budgets.
Other Points
• Committed to the ‘New Hospitals Programme’
• Committed to long-term NHS Workforce Plan, focussing on midwives & GPs
• Trial Neighbourhood Health Centres
Dentistry
• 700,000 more urgent dental appointments
• Reform of the dental contract
Social Care
• Create a National Care Service with national standards, with treatment focussed on supporting people to live independently for as long as possible.
Mental Health
• Ensure mental health is given the same attention as physical health.
• 8,500 new staff to treat children and adults
• New ‘Young Futures’ hubs to provide open access mental health services for children and young people
Preventative Approach
• Double the number of CT and MRI scanners
• Implement a rolling ban on the sale of cigarettes
• Build on the Online Safety Act to protect young people online
Supporting people with disabilities
• Reform or replace the Work Capability Assessment.
• Introduce the right to equal pay for disabled people and disability pay gap reporting for large corporations
• Review Universal Credit
Update national planning policy
• Make it easier to build: (specifically mentioned…)
o Roads, railways, reservoirs, laboratories, digital infrastructure, and gigafactories.
Build 1.5 million homes (Major Focus – part of the 6 ‘first steps’)
• By updating National Policy Planning Framework, including reintroducing mandatory housing targets, and recruiting additional local planning officers.