A Labour government would require all surgeries to allow bookings through the NHS app to end “the days of waiting on the phone at 8am to book an appointment”.
The proposals by Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, include forcing GPs to provide face-to-face appointments to everyone that wants them and allowing people to refer themselves to specialist services.
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Mr Streeting said: “Patients deserve better than a two-week wait to see a GP.
“Labour will give all patients the ability to book online, the opportunity to self-refer to specialist services where appropriate and a wider range of choice so that we can choose whether we want to see someone face-to-face, on the phone or via a video link.
“The days of waiting on the phone at 8am to book an appointment with your GP will be over and we will bring back the family doctor.”
Responding to the pledge, Dr Farah Jameel, who chairs the British Medical Association’s England GP committee, said doctors are “desperate” to provide patients with the care “they need and frankly deserve”, but said it is becoming increasingly difficult during a deepening workforce crisis.
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She said: “We simply don’t have enough doctors, and while it’s good to see Labour recognising the workforce challenges, it’s disappointing to see politicians once again making divisive headline-grabbing promises that are not grounded in reality, and which suggest the existing workforce are somehow not trying hard enough.”
Labour has already said it would train thousands more district nurses, health visitors and midwives by reversing Kwasi Kwarteng’s tax cut for top earners.
In his speech, Mr Streeting said investment would come alongside “change and modernisation”, promising a ten-year plan to shift the focus to prevention, early intervention and care in the community.
He also promised to deliver better pay, terms and conditions for care workers, which he calls “the first steps on the road to a National Care Service”.
Free NHS is “under attack”
Mr Streeting said the state of the NHS under the Conservatives was an “absolute disgrace” and he cited the 15-hour wait for an ambulance experienced by 87-year-old David Wakeley.
He said that a makeshift tent was made for the pensioner, who has cancer, as he lay “shivering on the rainswept concrete floor” where he’d fallen and fractured his ribs and his pelvis.
He also talked about his own battle with kidney cancer, as he claimed the principle of a publicly funded, free-at-the-point-of-use NHS is “under attack” and told those wanting to abandon it: “Over my dead body.”
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In another policy pledge made on the final day of the conference, Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, said Labour would ensure every primary school child in England has access to fully funded breakfast clubs.
Deputy leader Angela Rayner will close the conference, and party members will hear from the Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.
