New data shows that the public’s satisfaction with NHS Scotland has fallen to the lowest level since before the millennium, according to the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey 2023.
In polling that acquired more than 1,500 responses, the Scottish Centre for Social Research (ScotCen) found that under a quarter (23%) of people are satisfied with how the health service is being run in Scotland, while over half (52%) are dissatisfied.
This represents the first time since 2005 that more people are dissatisfied than satisfied with how the NHS runs and lowest and highest levels of satisfaction and dissatisfaction respectively since the timeseries began at the advent of devolution in 1999.
Satisfaction has fallen from almost two-thirds (64%) in 2019, which aligns with the separate statistic that nearly seven in 10 (69%) respondents thought the standard of the NHS had fallen over the last 12 months — the survey was conducted between 12 September 2023 and 31 October 2023, for context. This is also the highest value ever recorded by the survey.
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Improving people’s health was also the second biggest priority (15%) for Scottish people, with boosting the economy coming in as the most important (52%). Almost half (47%) of the respondents were in favour of the government increasing taxes to spend more on health, education and social benefits.
“The results mirror some of the findings from the British Social Attitudes survey and show the issues that the Scottish population are keen to see addressed by the government going forward,” explained ScotCen senior researcher, Alex Scholes.
The British Social Attitudes Survey, which sampled over 3,000 people from England, Scotland and Wales, recorded the exact same (52%) dissatisfaction rate and a slightly higher (24%) satisfaction rate.
The lack of satisfaction comes as health secretary Wes Streeting calls for an independent investigation in the state of the “broken” NHS, conducted by lifelong surgeon and innovator, Lord Darzi.
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