Election briefing: Quality of care in the English NHS In the balance
May 2017

Key points
- In the first briefing, we showed that funding in England since 2010 has not risen as quickly as the pressures on the NHS, which have been caused by having to meet the health care needs of a growing population, and the rising costs of staff, drugs and other essentials.
- What has happened to the quality of services since 2010? Has it started to falter under the weight of the gap between static funding and rising pressures?
- In this second briefing, we give a very high level snapshot of how the quality of some NHS services has changed over the past few years in England.
This is second of three Health Foundation briefings ahead of the June 2017 General Election, and focuses on the quality of care in the English NHS.
It finds that waiting times for many NHS urgent and emergency services in England were at their worst in 2016/17 for the last five years, but there is so far little evidence that the quality of care for some of the big killers – like heart attack, stroke and cancer – is deteriorating.
Further reading
Briefing
Election briefing: NHS and social care funding
This is first of three Health Foundation briefings ahead of the 2017 General Election.
Briefing
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