00:00Public satisfaction with the UK's National Health Service has increased for the first time since 2019.
00:0626% of the people questioned in last year's British Social Attitude Survey said they were very or quite satisfied
00:13with the NHS.
00:14The survey data, analysed by the King's Fund think tank, also shows the biggest fall in dissatisfaction with the NHS
00:21since 1998.
00:23But despite these promising signs, just over half the adults surveyed remain dissatisfied with the NHS.
00:29And that sounds more like a cause for concern than celebration, said The Guardian.
00:34Hospital waiting lists are still huge, social care provision is lagging and dentistry has probably never been in a weaker
00:41state.
00:42Chris Day, the chair of the Russell Group, said the most fundamental constraint on the NHS is that it doesn't
00:47have enough skilled people.
00:49He told The Times that there are more than 100,000 vacancies across the health ecosystem.
00:54And all the while, patient demand is increasing fast because of our ageing population, rising chronic illnesses, and growing expectations.
01:02Overall satisfaction might have risen, but puzzlingly there was no corresponding rise in satisfaction with individual services, such as A
01:11&E or GPs.
01:12Studies from other European countries show that how people feel about their health system is influenced by things outside it,
01:19such as the political climate and what they see in the media.
01:23And how people feel about the health system also feeds back into the political climate.
01:27The state of the NHS is central to Labour's hopes of political recovery, said Chris Smyth in the Financial Times.
01:33The Force is now and what it is.
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