Conservatives can manage us best, says NHS staff survey
pharmafile | April 12, 2010 | News story | Sales and Marketing | NHS, election
A new opinion poll suggest frontline NHS clinicians believe the Conservatives are best placed to manage the health service.
Market research firm Opinion Health surveyed 500 front-line health professionals across the UK (250 GPs, 150 nurses and 50 pharmacists) and found the Tories the most trusted to oversee the health service.
The survey suggests the Conservatives have won a significant battle in persuading voters and that they, and not Labour, are the ‘party of the NHS’.
Asked to rate which party would manage the NHS best, 35% thought the Tories were either ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ with 30% believing the same of Labour.
A parallel poll of 1,100 chronically ill patients was also conducted, and produced similar results, but with a narrower margin for the Conservatives; 37% believing the Tories were good or excellent and 35% the same for Labour. The Liberal Democrats were close behind at 32 percent.
Commenting on the survey, Andrew Wigmore, chief executive of Opinion Health said: “It is clear that front line staff in the NHS as well as patients are well and truly backing David Cameron and shows they support him more than Gordon Brown and the Labour Party to make the tough decisions overthe next few years.”
When asked about their voting intentions, similar patterns emerged; 31% of health professionals said they would vote Conservative in the May election, up 1% on the results of the 2005 election.
Support for Labour, however has slumped 17 points from 2005 to just 18 per cent. Meanwhile, over a quarter of respondents statied that they ‘didn’t know’ who they would vote for, possibly indicating that former Labour voters had become disenchanted with the party.
When asked who, in an “ideal world”, would they pick to be the next Prime Minister, David Cameron came top over Gordon Brown by 18% for both the health professionals and patients.
Interestingly Ann Widdecombe, who is stepping down as an MP this year, came fourth top as a potential Prime Minister for both groups.
When asked if ‘postcode prescribing’ still existed, 85% of healthcare professionals believed that it did, to a ‘high, significant or some degree’. Eighty-two percent of patients believed the same.
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