Starmer's NHS Claim: A Closer Look At The Facts

We're not all wearing Starmer's rose-coloured specs...

Keir Starmer's recent statement that Labour has treated 100,000 more patients on time since taking power is not supported by the available data. Despite this claim, NHS waiting times remain a significant issue, and patient satisfaction continues to decline.

In his speech, Starmer said an extra 100,000 patients had been treated on time under Labour's government.

But...

His figures don't match current NHS performance statistics. The latest reports show the overall NHS waiting list remains high, with around 7.43 million people waiting for treatment in January 2025. While the number of patients waiting more than a year for treatment has decreased slightly, it still remains far from the level required to meet the government’s targets.

Furthermore, waiting times for A&E and routine treatments remain a huge source of concern. According to the most recent British Social Attitudes survey, just 14% of respondents were satisfied with the length of time it takes to get hospital care. A&E waiting times, in particular, were a significant point of frustration, with only 12% of the public expressing satisfaction.

The promise to reduce waiting times and clear the backlog of patients is central to Labour’s NHS reform plan - but the current numbers suggest a negligible amount of improvement overall. The NHS is still struggling with long waiting lists, and there are no clear signs that Starmer’s claim of treating 100,000 more patients on time is accurate.

In fact, the latest NHS data shows a persistent backlog that is unlikely to be resolved without more substantial action.

And his recent claim that 1500 new GPs have been recruited is a prime example of the very 'sticking plaster politics' he insisted his 'Labour' would not do - the townscountiespostcodes website lists a current total of 43,453 towns and villages in the UK, plus of course 76 cities, containing a population of 69,861,990 as of 1 January 2025, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Starmer's 1500 new GPs, if they even exist outside of figure-juggling, are a laughably small drop in a very big ocean...

Satisfaction with the NHS continues to fall. Public trust has dropped significantly in recent years, with only 21% of people now satisfied with the service, down from 60% in 2019. The NHS has faced increasing pressure from rising demand, a shortage of staff, and ongoing financial strain. Despite efforts to improve care, the current situation has led to widespread dissatisfaction among patients.

Starmer’s claim about the NHS may have resonated with some, but the facts do not align with his claims.

Until waiting lists shrink and patient satisfaction improves, the UK electorate remains more than sceptical about a neoliberal Labour government’s ability to fix the NHS. For now, it seems that promises of rapid change are not backed up by the data on the ground.

A socialist Labour government under a genuine, competent Labour PM, with the real Labour values Starmer and his Cabinet seem to lack, could offer a different approach. By bringing services back in-house, as Corbyn proposed in the manifestos Starmer claimed to believe in, the NHS could reduce reliance on costly private contracts and improve efficiency.

This would allow for better control over resources, streamline decision-making, and ensure that the focus remains on patient care rather than profit. Such a shift could not only help address the NHS’s financial challenges but also provide a more sustainable, patient-focused system.

Wes Streeting, however, seems set on offloading as much of the NHS as he can to private health profiteers. Influenced, clearly, by the tens of thousands he has happily trousered from donors in the private health lobby, last week he appointed health privateer Samantha Jones - who pushed for the use of ‘associates’ without medical training and ran a private GP business with half the usual number of GPs - to basically run the DHSC as Private Secretary, almost the highest rank in Whitehall.

As reported by Skwawkbox this week:

"In 2019, Samantha Jones moved to become CEO of Operose, which took over a string of GP surgeries to become. as of 2022, the largest provider of GP surgeries to the NHS. True to her roots in NMC’s use of PAs, Operose – later sold to what used to be Virgin Care – used PAs in its surgeries at around six times the NHS average and, as a 2022 Panorama investigation shortly after her departure discovered, offers its patients only half of the average number of GPs per patient. PAs working for Operose expressed concern at the lack of supervision they received"

as part of NHS cost-cutting ‘integrated care’ plan"

Additionally, Jones advised the Tories on healthcare from 2015-2019, charged with running the Tories' 'New Model of Care' programme for the NHS, which strongly advocated the use of Physicians Assistants in place of qualified GPs in order to save money.

Now Streeting has given her all but free rein to spread those toxic practices across the NHS - it's part of his NHS cost-cutting 'integrated care plan', apparently...

In 2022, she was brought in as Chief Operations Officer, to restore order to Boris Johnson's chaotic No.10. As we all recall, that went tremendously well - we can only hope that her appointment achieves the same outcome for Streeting and Starmer...