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

With less than three weeks to go until the UK elects its next government, its main political parties have published their main election pledges.

At a time when the nation’s public health system is battling massive waits for urgent care, elective procedures, dentistry and more, each party’s health policies are vital to voters.

In fact, health is often ranked as the most important issue British public.

So who are the UK’s main parties and what are their plans for health?

The main political parties

The three major 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 referred to as the “Tories” — had been in power for 14 years when Sunak called a snap election last month. Although they won the last general election in 2019 with a large majority, the party’s population has won has plummeted over the past three years. It is traditionally on the right of the political spectrum.

The left-wing Labor Party last led a government under Gordon Brown in 2010, when it lost to the Conservatives’ David Cameron and the Lib Dems’ Nick Clegg. The party has gone through significant upheaval in recent years after former leader Jeremy Corbyn was replaced 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 after their Conservative-led coalition government significantly increased university fees.

But a stunt-packed campaign by current leader Ed Davey (featuring roller coasters, obstacle courses, paddles and dinosaur statues) has captured the nation’s attention. The polls show the Lib Dems are on track for significant gainsbut they are likely to remain dwarfed by the other two major parties.

What do the parties promise about health?

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

According to proclamationthe Conservatives want to increase the role of pharmacists as front-line health providers, improve and expand GP facilities and create dozens of new community-based diagnostic centres.

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. In contrast, it plans to cut around 5,000 management roles.

The party says it is delivering on the promises of previous Conservative governments, building dozens of new hospital buildings promised by former prime minister Boris Johnson in 2020 and implementing legislation that effectively prevents many teenagers from buying tobacco products.

The Labor Party says Her government would provide 40,000 more publicly funded operations, appointments and scans a week to help improve waiting times.

The party promises to modernize the health service’s digital systems, aging hospitals and imaging technology by doubling the number of x-rays and MRIs.

It is also committed to making childbirth safer and closing the mortality gap between black and Asian mothers and their white peers. Black and Asian women are currently far more likely to die in childbirth in the UK

Like the Conservatives, Labor plans to hire more dentists and provide more dental appointments. The party also promises to hire thousands more mental health staff and tackle racial disparities in mental health bookings.

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

The Liberal Democrats they are committed to giving members of the public the right to see a family doctor within a week, employing 8,000 more GPs to achieve this.

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

The party wants to reduce waiting times for mental health services by introducing community hubs for young people and routine mental health checks.

Like Labour, the Lib Dems focus on population health and the 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 is actually going to happen?

Reducing these headline-grabbing electoral and emergency care waits is likely to be a key goal for any new government.

Pre-election polls strongly suggest a Labor victory and significant growth for the Lib Dems. So it’s reasonable to assume that Labour’s policies are the ones to watch out for. But whoever gets in, how faithfully they will stick to their manifesto is much harder to predict.

Health think tank the Nuffield Trust he says all three parties are promising more than they can realistically fund. Many proposed policies are likely to shrink in scale or simply never make it to the table.