Public priorities for the NHS identified at Labour Party Conference

A session led by the Health Foundation and Ipsos revealed that “the NHS is still top of the pops” in terms of public opinion

4 min read

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Lucy Miller

12 October 2026

The public’s priorities for the NHS were discussed during a presentation at the Labour Party Conference (27 September, Liverpool Experience Campus).

Opening the fringe session, entitled What are the public’s priorities for the NHS and social care?, Health Foundation chief executive Dr Jennifer Dixon DBE told attendees that “the NHS is still top of the pops.”

“The NHS is always number one or number two in the list of public priorities, and that hasn’t really shifted, even though the number of people who are taking up private insurance is around 12%,” Dixon said.

Anna Quigley, research director at Ipsos, identified the public’s three top priorities for society as healthcare, including the NHS and hospitals, inflation and the rising cost of living, and immigration.

“The NHS is always one of the most important issues that people tell us helps them decide who to vote for at a General Election. In fact, at the moment, it’s the most important issue,” Quigley said.

The difference currently is that people place the NHS in their top five areas that need improvement, she revealed – in fact, almost half of the public believe that the NHS requires “radical change.”

At the same time, she noted that 73% believe that the NHS is crucial to British society.

Nine in 10 Labour voters agree with this sentiment, Quigley noted.

The public do not want to “get rid of the NHS,” Quigley said, but instead require better access and have concerns over staffing.

“People do not want to get rid of the underpinning model or change that in any way,” she said.

Quigley explained: “You have, at the top of their priority list, improving waiting times for A&E, making it easier to get appointments at their GP practice, and then issues around reducing the number of staff and improving waiting times for routine hospital services.”

She added: “In fact, those top two cut across all of the different political parties.”

She noted that these priorities have remained stable over a number of years.

The public is “very much wedded to the idea of the NHS,” Quigley emphasised.

The research showed that the Labour Party is viewed as the strongest party on the NHS amongst the general public, she also noted.

The survey of 700,000 people was carried out by Ipsos, and the fringe session was hosted by Ipsos, the Health Foundation, and The Purpose Coalition.

Ageing population and NHS expectations

Also speaking at the event was Anna Dixon, MP for Shipley in West Yorkshire.

Dixon’s constituency includes a large demographic of older people who live with comorbidities and require “continuity and joined up care,” she said.

She noted that every government must make a “resource allocation choice” when it comes to where to spend their budget, and that historically the NHS has benefited “massively” when these decisions have taken place.

The NHS was protected when austerity policies were in place during the 2010s, Dixon said.

Stephen Bush, a columnist and associate editor at the Financial Times, noted that different parts of the NHS are important to different people.

Healthy working age people are most likely to value easy access to primary care, including GPs and pharmacies, Bush told attendees.

Older people and those living with comorbidities value hospital services more highly and this is “a different part of NHS reform,” he said.

Bush also noted that the majority of NHS spend goes towards the healthcare of Conservative and Reform voters, as they are statistically an older demographic.

People are not generally inclined to thank the Labour Party for anything and this was demonstrated at the local elections in May 2026, Bush said.

Jennifer Dixon emphasised that those with private health insurance often remain heavy users of the NHS, as private health insurance policies have limits on the amount of care they can fund, and often exclude pre-existing conditions.

People do understand that demographic shifts mean an ageing population and that this puts pressure on the NHS, Quigley told attendees.

However, she explained that a person’s access to their GP surgery is more likely than a waiting list number to impact how they view the NHS.

“If any expert had been asked during the General Election, the metric chosen [to speak about the NHS] would not have been waiting lists,” Bush told attendees.

In the context of the 10-Year Health Plan, Anna Dixon explained that she sits on the Public Accounts Committee and can see firsthand that the majority of NHS spend goes towards hospitals and acute care.

The Government knows that this needs to change, Dixon said.

NHS and social care

The session also heavily focused on social care, in light of the announcement into reform of the sector made by Prime Minister Andy Burnham on the morning of Sunday 27 September.

The public’s top reason for improving social care is that it will improve the NHS, Quigley said.

She also noted that, in the context of both healthcare and social care, the public does not care whether a service is provided by the public or private sector – as long as the care they receive is of a high quality.