Satisfaction with NHS collapses despite Labour vow to fix service
Almost 3,000 people were surveyed in September and October for the report, which is produced by the Nuffield Trust and The King's Fund think tanks, and took place just months after Labour took power.
Mark Dayan, co-author and Nuffield Trust policy analyst, said since the pandemic, there had been 'a startling collapse in NHS satisfaction'.
'This was no aberration: it is continuing even today. It is by far the most dramatic loss of confidence in how the NHS runs that we have seen in 40 years of this survey,' he said.
The report suggests the public agrees with Sir Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting's rhetoric about the NHS being 'broken' and that this 'may partially explain the lack of a post-election 'bounce' in optimism from Labour supporters seen the last time their party swept to power'.
It said satisfaction rates the last time Labour held office were an 'astonishingly high 70 per cent' and felt 'almost unreachable' today.
Mr Streeting, the Health Secretary, said the Government had 'taken the NHS off life support' since the survey was carried out.
'Thanks to the necessary decisions we took in the Budget, we've invested a record £26 billion over two years, ended the crippling strikes, cut waiting lists for five months in a row and delivered two million extra appointments seven months early,' he said.
'There's a long way to go, but we are fixing our NHS to make it fit for the future.'
The growing discontent with the NHS was seen across supporters of all political parties, and satisfaction fell among both Conservative and Labour supporters despite the change of Government.
Reform supporters least satisfied
For the first time, the report included the sentiment of Reform Party supporters, who were the least satisfied with the NHS at just 13 per cent.
The analysis also found that 70 per cent of people in Labour-run Wales were dissatisfied with the NHS, which was worse than England and Scotland.
The authors of the report said the findings made for 'grim' reading across the board.
There were falls in satisfaction across services, including dentistry and general practice, which saw satisfaction levels decrease to record lows of 20 per cent and 31 per cent respectively.
But the biggest drop-off was in Accident and Emergency, with just 19 per cent of the public satisfied with the service.
It means A&E is the worst performing NHS service in the public's eye for the first time.
Satisfaction with social care also remained at historic lows of just 13 per cent.
The service people were most happy with was inpatient and outpatient hospital appointments, despite bringing down the 7.4 million backlog a priority for the Government.
The researchers said the findings posed a conundrum about which of the areas to target for improvement.
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