A fair Deal For Health

High-quality healthcare, free at the point of use, is essential for both individual freedom and national prosperity. Good health gives people the freedom to live the lives they choose, and a thriving economy needs a healthy population.

The Conservatives have plunged the NHS into crisis. They have run local health services into the ground, putting people, buildings and beds under immense pressure. With 112,000 staff vacancies in England alone, long waiting times, missed targets and poor outcomes, patient safety is being pushed into the danger zone.

People are no longer confident that when they need medical help they can get it. When they ring 999 they don’t know if they will get the emergency treatment they need in time. Millions are waiting for treatment, unable to work. With overwhelming pressure on resources, staff shortages, and long waiting times, patient safety is at risk, and confidence in timely medical help has eroded.

Liberal Democrats believe that everyone should get the care they need, when they need it.

An NHS for all

There are major issues facing the NHS today, which we must tackle head-on.

Liberal Democrats are committed to ensuring everyone gets the care and treatments they need.

Our Fair Deal includes:

✅ Accessible GP Services: Ensuring everyone can see their GP speedily when needed, investing in the training, recruitment, and retention of GPs and freeing up more of their time.

✅ Overhauling NHS Dentistry: Ending the rise in “dental deserts” by improving the availability of NHS appointments and eliminating the burden of private care costs, both of which are leading to people performing DIY dentistry - with devastating outcomes.

✅ Boosting Cancer Survival Rates: Establishing a legal right for cancer patients to start treatment within two months of an urgent referral.

✅ Healthcare Workforce Strengthening: Recruiting, training, and retaining more doctors and nurses.

✅ Tackling the Ambulance Crisis: Addressing the life-threatening response times in our ambulance services including by providing emergency funding.

✅ Fixing the Social Care Crisis: Carers should be properly paid and valued for the essential, skilled work they do. Everyone deserves high-quality social care if they need it. We’ll be covering our full plan for social care in an upcoming edition of our ‘For a Fair Deal’ series.

Investing in Public Health

To reduce the burden on our health services, the Liberal Democrats will address lifestyle-induced health issues by:

✅ Empowering Communities: Progressively restore the Public Health Grant to 2015 levels, with a proportion of these funds set aside for local communities experiencing the worst health inequalities to co-produce plans on how the money should be spent in their area.

✅ Promoting Movement: Reverse the government cuts to the active travel budget and introduce a nationwide strategy to promote walking and cycling, including the creation of dedicated safe cycling lanes.

✅ Improving Schools and Hospitals: Implement higher food standards in schools and hospitals to ensure every child and patient receives a healthy, balanced diet.

✅ Tackling Vaping and Smoking Among Children: Implementing standardised packaging, advertising restrictions and banning disposable vapes. Reduce vaping among non-smokers, while recognising the important role vaping plays in helping adults quit smoking.

✅ Increasing Blood Pressure Checks: Widen access to blood pressure tests in community spaces like pharmacies and libraries to reach underserved populations.

✅ Social Prescribing: Invest in community projects that counter loneliness and share best practices across local authorities, the NHS, GPs, and primary care services.

Taking a Stand for Mental Health

Looking after the nation’s mental health is just as important as physical health.

No one should be stuck in the awful position of waiting months on end for mental health services when they are struggling.

We would end this mental health injustice, finally putting mental health on the same footing as physical health, including:

✅ Walk-In Centres for Young People: Roll out community mental health hubs for children and young people in every area of the country, to provide early prevention and support.

✅ A Mental Health Practitioner in Every School: Provide dedicated, qualified mental health practitioners to every school and roll out a national well-being survey in secondary schools.

✅ Mental Health MOTs: Checkups at key points in people’s lives when they are most vulnerable to mental ill-health.

✅ End Out of Area Placements: Increase capacity and coordination between mental health services so that no one is treated far from home.

✅ Expand Young People’s Mental Health Services Up to the Age of 25: Rapidly expand effective and age-appropriate mental health support beyond the age of 18 so that all under 25-year-olds are able to access mental health support when they need it.