Skip to main content
‘Too little, too late’
Tories' belated NHS plan ignores a decade of eroding pay, critics warn
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak during a press conference in Downing Street in London, as the NHS and Government launch the first ever Long Term Workforce Plan in the history of the NHS. Picture date: Friday June 30, 2023.

THE Tory government’s long-delayed and much-trailed NHS workforce plan is “too little, too late and ignores more than a decade of eroding take-home pay,” critics have warned. 

The proposals, published today after first being promised earlier this year, include commitments to double university places for medical students, launch an new apprenticeship scheme for doctors and shorten medical degrees.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak claimed the belated plan – published ahead of the austerity-hit NHS’s 75th anniversary next week – was “historic and had taken time to get right.”

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
THE PRIVATEER: Wes Streeting
Features / 11 March 2026
11 March 2026

In the second part of her critique of Wes Streeting’s TenYear Plan for Health, HELEN MERCER looks at the central planks of this privatisation blueprint

A general view of staff on a NHS hospital ward at Ealing Hospital in London
Features / 11 October 2025
11 October 2025

We need a massive change in direction to renew a crumbling health service — that’s why Plaid Cymru has an ambitious plan to recentre primary care by recruiting 500 additional GPs and opening six new elective care hubs across Wales, writes MABON AP GWYNFOR

A support worker stands in a corridor as the first patients
Workers' Rights / 12 August 2025
12 August 2025

Government urged ‘to tackle the root causes’ of the NHS crisis and improve ‘social care services’