You may recall that a couple of weeks ago I wrote that the starting gun had been fired on key policy pledges ahead of the next general election.
The major political parties have now all held their autumn conferences, with health and care featuring heavily on the agenda.
Now that the stands, lecterns and packets of glitter have been packed away, I thought it was worth a quick recap on who promised and said what.
“Nursing Times will be scrutinising what is said and done, analysing and asking the questions, and sifting the waffle from the important bits”
Most fresh in the memory is probably the Labour Party conference, which came to a conclusion earlier this week in Liverpool.
First up, in a release to the media, Labour pledged a £1.1bn package to cut NHS waiting lists in England by paying nurses and their colleagues to provide additional out-of-hours appointments.
In addition, Labour unveiled a new fund that it promised would give the NHS state-of-the-art equipment and new technology in order to help cut waiting times.
Party leader Sir Kier Starmer followed this up in his speech by stating that a Labour government would “get the NHS working around the clock and pay staff properly to do it”.
However, he also warned that reform of the health service was unavoidable, arguing that, without it, the NHS would “remain on life support”.
Picking up the same thread, his health spokesman Wes Streeting promised to modernise the NHS in England if the party wins the next general election.
He also pledged to draw up a workforce plan to address recruitment and retention in the social care sector, which would come up with the first-ever fair pay agreement for care professionals.
Meanwhile, back at the end of September, the Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Ed Davey, pledged to introduce a legal right for cancer patients to start treatment within two months of an urgent referral.
In Bournemouth, he also highlighted that the crisis in the NHS was “inextricably linked” to the crisis in social care and pledged to hire more social care staff, provide them with training and better pay.
A few days prior to that, in Manchester, the Conservative Party held its conference, with both health secretary Steve Barclay and the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, tackling the NHS in their speeches.
Mr Barclay used his conference speech to outline new measures that the current Conservative government was looking to implement “to give patients more control and choice”.
Proposals to change the NHS constitution that would potentially lead to transgender people being banned from single-sex hospital wards drew most of the media headlines.
The NHS also featured heavily in Mr Sunak’s conference speech, though he steered clear of the constitution, instead focusing on workforce.
He said he wanted “to give the NHS the staff it needs”, mentioning the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, as well as promising to offer “new ways of training, new roles and new ways of working”.
According to those in the know, the next election is most likely to take place in either spring or autumn next year.
That may seem a while away in real terms but will almost certainly mean a ramping up in political scrutiny and rhetoric on happenings in the health and social care sectors.
Not least the traditionally incredibly difficult winter period to come over the next few months, with the twin-headed Chimera of Covid and influenza on the cards. And there’s an ongoing doctors’ strike.
There will be a lot of noise and a lot of attempted point scoring, but in there somewhere will hopefully be the beginnings of some detailed and considered policies on health and social care.
Make no mistake, the NHS and its staff will be a key political battleground as we head towards the next general election.
Nursing Times will be scrutinising what is said and done, analysing and asking the questions, and sifting the waffle from the important bits.
We also have some exciting plans of our own for the election that we will be in a position to share with you in the coming weeks.