Election Result and Tendering
What are the impacts following the election result and tendering? On Friday 5th July 2024, the Labour party won the general election by a landslide majority. Winning 411 out of 650 seats, Labour benefitted from the largest swing in a UK general election in 79 years. The new parliament, headed by Keir Starmer, promises ‘change’ for the UK under Labour leadership and an NHS ‘Fit for the Future’- but what might this look like for the Social Care Sector?
Unpacking Labour’s manifesto, there are key differences that may be implemented under Labour’s leadership.
Commitments include better working conditions, an increase of training roles and positions, and the introduction of a National Care Service. With this blog post, you will gain a better understanding of Labour’s pledges and how change will affect the sector.
Election Result and Tendering Mission Goals
In their manifesto, Labour set out three long-term, measurable goals that they will be held accountable for. These are:
- An NHS that is there when people need it: this focuses on improving wait times for frontline NHS services, including the ambulance service, GPs, and A&E.
- Fewer lives lost to the biggest killers: through introducing new medicines and early detection technology, Labour plans to increase survival rates for preventable killers. This includes Cancer, Cardiovascular disease, and suicide.
- A fairer Britain where everyone lives well for longer: by tackling wider inequalities that lead to poor health, introducing community care, and early childhood intervention, Labour pledges to improve healthy life expectancy for all.
Manifesto commitments
Key commitments include:
Neighbourhood NHS Workforce:
Labour pledges to shift focus to primary care and community teams for early detection. This would include:
- Bringing together existing services such as family doctors, district nurses, care workers, physiotherapists, palliative care, and mental health specialists under one roof.
- Providing 40,000 more appointments a week by paying staff more to work weekends and evenings.
- Doubling the number of district nurses and training 5,000 more health visitors to expand ‘hospital at home’ services, like virtual wards, to deliver the hospital standard care into the home using technology.
- Training 5,000 more health visitors will take pressure off GPs and A&E.
National Care Service
Labour plans to create a National Care Service to construct national care standards and deliver consistency across the UK. This includes:
- Services being ‘home first’ with a focus on enabling service users to live life as independently as possible for as long as they can.
- Supporting partnerships between care companies and the NHS on hospital discharge.
- Establishing a Fair Pay Agreement in adult social care. This includes setting fair pay, terms and conditions, and training standards.
- Assessing the role social care workers can play in basic health treatment and monitoring e.g., blood pressure readings.
- Requiring all care providers to demonstrate financial sustainability and responsible tax practices, to value their staff, and to deliver high quality care for service users before they are allowed to receive contracts from local authorities and before they can gain registration from the Care Quality.
Mental Health
Labour pledges to improve mental health awareness and decrease waiting lists for referrals, through:
- Recruiting 8,500 more mental health staff to treat adults and children.
- Introducing Young Futures hubs to provide open access mental health services for children and young adults.
- Training staff in supporting people at risk.
- Modernising legislation to support everyone fairly.
Unpaid Carers
Labour commits to supporting unpaid carers by giving them paid family carer’s leave, join up services and support so families don’t have to battle their way around the system, and give people in care homes a new legal right to see their loved ones.
Looking to the future
With the introduction of new health care services and pledges to improve healthcare staff working conditions, it is imperative for healthcare companies to be aware of emerging changes and regulations. Whether Labour will achieve their goals or not, with a new governing body, change is to be expected across the Health and Social sector, bringing new opportunities for your business to grow and develop.
If you want to know more about opportunities for growing your company through tendering, get in contact with us HERE for experienced support. Your Tender Team can provide advice and assistance to help you gain new business prospects through successful bids. If you want to take your bidding process to the next level and increase your chances of success, call us immediately at 0116 218 2700 for a free, no-obligation estimate.