The NHS will be the Conservatives' "achilles heel" at the next election, ministers have been warned in a report by a former government special adviser on health. Richard Sloggett said the Tories' standing has been badly undermined by their failure to deliver on most of the pledges to improve the NHS they made at the 2019 general election.
"The NHS is back as the Conservatives' electoral achilles heel," Sloggett he NHS will be the Conservatives' "achilles heel" at the next election, ministers have said in a report for his Future Health thinktank. "The inability to deliver on the health promises in the [2019] manifesto and deteriorating access to care mean the NHS is back once again as the issue of greatest threat to Conservative prospects at the next election."
Sloggett was a policy adviser to then health secretary Matt Hancock at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) in 2018-19 and before that worked at Policy Exchange, the right-of-centre thinktank.
The government has met or is on track to fulfil only 14 of the 35 health-related pledges it made during the 2019 campaign, according to his analysis.
It should increase the number of nurses working in the NHS in England by 50,000 by the 2024 election, as there are already 44,000 more than in 2019, he said.
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Finn family murals
The optimism that runs through Finnish artist Tove Jansson's Moomin stories also appears in her public works, now on show in a Helsinki exhibition
I hoped Finland would be a progressive dream.I've had to think again Mike Watson
Oulu is five hours north from Helsinki by train and a good deal colder and darker each winter than the Finnish capital. From November to March its 220,000 residents are lucky to see daylight for a couple of hours a day and temperatures can reach the minus 30s. However, this is not the reason I sense a darkening of the Finnish dream that brought me here six years ago.
A surplus of billionaires is destabilising our democracies Zoe Williams
The concept of \"elite overproduction\" was developed by social scientist Peter Turchin around the turn of this century to describe something specific: too many rich people for not enough rich-person jobs.
'What will people think? I don't care any more'
At 90, Alan Bennett has written a sex-fuelled novella set in a home for the elderly. He talks about mourning Maggie Smith, turning down a knighthood and what he makes of the new UK prime minister
I see you
What happens when people with acute psychosis meet the voices in their heads? A new clinical trial reveals some surprising results
Rumbled How Ali ran rings around apartheid, 50 years ago
Fifty years ago, in a corner of white South Africa, Muhammad Ali already seemed a miracle-maker.
Trudeau faces 'iceberg revolt'as calls grow for PM to quit
Justin Trudeau, who promised “sunny ways” as he won an election on a wave of public fatigue with an incumbent Conservative government, is now facing his darkest and most uncertain political moment as he attempts to defy the odds to win a rare fourth term.
Lost Maya city revealed through laser mapping
After swapping machetes and binoculars for computer screens and laser mapping, a team of researchers have discovered a lost Maya city containing temple pyramids, enclosed plazas and a reservoir which had been hidden for centuries by the Mexican jungle.
'A civil war' Gangs step up assault on capital
Armed fighters advance into neighbourhoods at the heart of Port-au-Prince as authorities try to restore order
Reality bites in the Himalayan 'kingdom of happiness'
High emigration and youth unemployment levels belie the mountain nation's global reputation for cheeriness
