Public concern about the NHS has soared to its highest level since before the pandemic amid strikes by nurses and ambulance workers. Pollster Ipsos found 42% of people listed the state of the NHS as a major issue facing the country in January, with more people mentioning it than inflation, the economy or immigration.
The total represents a huge increase on December 2022, when just 27% of people mentioned the NHS as a major issue. It is the first time the NHS has topped Ipsos’s monthly issues poll since February 2020, and the highest level of concern about the health service recorded since that same month as Covid-19 spread across the UK.
Labour and Conservative voters were equally concerned about the NHS, with 48% of both parties’ 2019 voters mentioning it. The figures follow a wave of strikes in the NHS and stories about "chaos" in hospitals.
