In 1997, Tony Blair’s election “pledge card” included a promise to cut NHS waiting lists, then totalling 1.16 million. Keir Starmer’s “first steps for change” include a similar pledge to cut waiting times, but his task is on a different scale, with 7.5 million people currently awaiting treatment. How did things get so bad?
Blair’s government eventually got waiting lists down with a combination of hard cash for hospitals and harder threats for their managers. After 13 years of Labour government and a global financial crisis, David Cameron’s Conservatives took over in 2010, but needed support from the Liberal Democrats to form a governing coalition that spent the next five years trimming the fat – and a big chunk of flesh and bone – from public services, including the NHS.
Between 2010 and 2024, the Conservative party remained in power but rarely seemed to be in control – constrained by a combination of coalition partners, party malcontents and international crises (some, such as Brexit, of its own making). Still, it has been the Conservative party’s five prime ministers and seven health secretaries who have had the greatest influence over the NHS over the past 14 years.
