How Labour has performed on health in its first year in power

In his excoriating 2024 analysis of NHS performance for the new Labour government, surgeon Ara Darzi was clear: top-down reorganisation of NHS England and integrated care boards (ICBs) was “neither necessary nor desirable.”1 Ministers are now pursuing both.

Claiming that the NHS was broken, Labour’s manifesto, unveiled in June 2024, promised to cut waiting times, by adding 40 000 more appointments a week, meet the referral-to-treatment target of 92% of patients being seen within 18 weeks, and double the number of cancer scanners. It also sought to rescue NHS dentistry, employ 8500 more mental health staff, reset relations between staff and government, deliver the new hospital programme, and ensure the “return of the family doctor.”2

The pledge of more appointments is on track, but progress on treatment waiting times is far short of what is required to hit the target. Some progress has been made on providing more scanners, but there’s a long way to go.3 Access to dentistry remains below pre-pandemic levels,4 there is no clear evidence of more mental health staff,5 staff relations are still poor, and much of the new hospital programme is delayed until the 2030s.

Siva Anandaciva, policy director at the health think tank the King’s Fund, describes progress in Labour’s first year as a mixed bag. “The early months were marked by action to resolve industrial action for some staff groups and completing a very quick audit of how the NHS was performing,” he says. “One year in, waiting lists are coming down, but only sluggishly, we are still waiting for the 10 year plan to be published—instead of seeing the plan being delivered—and still waiting …