Keir Starmer’s Labour government elected

On 22 May 2024, the Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called a general election for 4 July 2024. On 5 July 2024, it was announced that the Labour Party had won the general election and gained power for the first time in 14 years.  

Labour won 411 seats in the House of Commons – 209 more than in the 2019 election. The Conservative Party won 121 seats – 244 less than in the 2019 general election.  

On 5 July 2024, the new Prime Minister Keir Starmer appointed Wes Streeting as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. Streeting had previously served as the Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. 

Manifesto commitments on health and care  

The Labour Party’s manifesto had committed to ‘build an NHS fit for the future’ as one of its five core ‘missions’. As part of this mission, Labour pledged to reform the health and care system, reduce health inequalities and harness technology and life sciences to reduce preventable illness. Labour’s key manifesto pledges on health, social care and public health included: 

• Cutting NHS waiting times by creating 40,000 more appointments every week and meeting NHS performance standards for waiting times from referral to treatment.
• Doubling the number of CT and MRI scanners in the NHS to support with cancer diagnosis.
• Introducing a new Dentistry Rescue Plan and providing 700,000 more urgent dental appointments.
• Recruiting an additional 8,500 mental health staff to bring down waiting times and support earlier intervention.
• Incentivising continuity of care in general practice to ‘bring back the family doctor’.
• Creating a National Care Service and establishing a Fair Pay Agreement in adult social care.
• Taking preventative public health measures to reduce harms from smoking, obesity and gambling.
• Halving the gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and poorest regions in England.
• Raising the healthiest generation of children in history.
• Moving more resources to primary and community care and trialling Neighbourhood Health Centres. 

It also promised to fulfil existing commitments made by the Conservative government, including delivering the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, the New Hospitals Programme and legislation to create a smoke-free generation. 

The Darzi review, 10-Year Health Plan and three shifts 

On 11 July 2024, the new health secretary, Wes Streeting, announced an independent investigation into the state of the NHS, to be led by Professor Lord Ara Darzi. This ‘rapid assessment’ would form the basis of the government’s 10-year plan to reform the NHS. Darzi was a surgeon, independent peer and former health minister under Gordon Brown’s Labour government. Darzi had led a previous major review of the NHS in 2008. 

On 7 September 2024, Wes Streeting announced that the NHS would undergo ‘three shifts’ under the new government: from ‘hospital to community’, ‘analogue to digital’ and ‘sickness to prevention’. 

On 12 September 2024, Keir Starmer announced the findings of the Darzi review in a speech at the King’s Fund. Starmer stated that the NHS was in crisis, national health was in decline and stated that the NHS must ‘reform or die’.