Public satisfaction with NHS at record low just before General Election
Ipsos poll conducted in May 2024 and published this month by the Health Foundation says that just 28% of the public think the NHS provides a good service nationally.
Public satisfaction with the NHS hit a record low just weeks ahead of last month’s General Election, according to a poll published by independent charity the Health Foundation.
Photo by Nicolas J Leclercq
Things were already bad: in March, we reported that the National Centre for Social Research had found public satisfaction with the NHS at a record low. But the new Ipsos poll, conducted between May 9 and 15, is even worse.
The 28% of those polled who felt the NHS provides a good service nationally is a sizeable 6 percentage points below the figure from the same poll last year. It is also the lowest value since the charity began regularly asking the question in 2021.
Worse still, some 46% of those polled disagreed with the statement that the NHS is providing a good service nationally; 23% neither agreed nor disagreed with the statement.
Some 2,136 UK adults aged 16+ took part in the survey via Ipsos’ UK KnowledgePanel, which used random probability address-based sampling. More than half of those surveyed (52%) expect the general standard of NHS care to worsen over the coming year. Those polled also thought the top priorities for tackling this crisis were reducing the number of staff leaving the NHS by improving working conditions (39%), making it easier to get appointments at GP practices (34%) and boosting NHS staff numbers by increasing recruitment (32%).
What’s more, 78% of those polled are concerned about the pressures faced by GP practices and more than half (55%) believe the government should be responsible for tackling these challenges.
Yet there was also a sense that the NHS could itself improve: an increasing proportion of the public think the NHS often wastes money: 65% in this new poll compared to 53% in November 2022.
For the full report see Health Foundation: Public perceptions of health and social care (May 2024).
Tim Gardner, Assistant Director of Policy at the Health Foundation, says: ‘Public satisfaction with the NHS was at a record low prior to the election and the new government will have its work cut out to turn that around. The public want to see steps taken to retain NHS staff, improve GP access and recruit more people to work in the health service.
‘The new government has made a promising start in reaching an agreement with union leaders to settle industrial action by junior doctors and NHS staff will welcome the decision to accept the NHS Pay Review Body recommendations. However, the challenges facing the NHS are considerable. There are no quick fixes, but the NHS can recover with the right mix of policy change, innovation and investment.’
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