This doesn’t make happy reading…
New polling has revealed what NHS staff think about the current state of the health service. It doesn’t make happy reading.
According to the poll, 86 per cent of NHS staff think the NHS is in a ‘very weak’ or ‘fairly weak’ state. By contrast, just 10 per cent of staff said it was in a ‘fairly strong’ state, and 2 per cent in a ‘very strong’ state.
In bad news for the current government, only 30 per cent of NHS staff think it is handling the NHS well, compared to 53 per cent who think it is handling it badly.
Despite this, the Labour government can at least take some solace in the fact that NHS staff have a much worse opinion of how the Tories handled the health service. 87 per cent of NHS staff think the Tories handled the NHS badly, compared to just 8 per cent who think they handled it well.
As part of the poll, NHS staff were asked to name what they deemed to be up to three of the biggest problems facing the health service.
Half (50 per cent) of all respondents said that lack of funding was one of the biggest issues. This was followed by increased demand (48 per cent), staff shortages (46 per cent), poor management (34 per cent), bad policy (22 per cent), Covid-19 (17 per cent), and privatisation and outsourcing (16 per cent).
The least common response given as to a problem in the health service was the actions of trade unions. Just 2 per cent of respondents listed this as one of the problems facing the NHS.
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
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