General Election 2024: Make CF top of the agenda

Access to care

The Trust is calling for the Government to secure the future of CF specialist care and address staffing recruitment and retention issues within CF teams, particularly around psychosocial provision. 

In a survey of adult and paediatric CF centres across the UK, we found that 20% of people reported that they didn’t have a clinical psychologist. Our recent Your life and CF report also found that 1 in 3 people worried about their mental health every day. 

As people with CF live longer, it is vital that they can have access to mental health support as part of their specialist CF care. Many of the political parties have pledged in their manifesto to improve mental health provision, particularly for young people and in schools. The Trust would like to see a commitment from the new Government to address staffing shortfalls in mental health, particularly for those living with long term conditions like CF. 

• Labour has pledged an 'additional 8,500 mental health staff and specialist mental health support in every school'. 
• The Conservatives have outlined plans to 'expand coverage of Mental Health Support Teams from 50% to 100% of schools and colleges in England by 2030'. 
• The Liberal Democrats have pledged to ‘put a dedicated, qualified mental health professional in every primary and secondary school, making sure all children and parents have someone they can turn to for help.’

Equity for all

The Trust is calling for access to free prescriptions for everyone with CF, many of who need to take up to 50 tablets a day. We believe a change in prescription costs is long overdue, yet only one political party has so far pledged to review NHS prescription charges in England. It is vital that the new Government will commit to addressing this outdated and unfair system. 

We are also calling for an uplift in statutory sick pay. Many of the party manifestos have indicated some form of statutory sick pay (SSP) reform, with some pledging to pay SSP from day one of sick leave which echoes our own calls for the four day wait for SSP payment to be abolished. 

We believe an uplift to SSP rate will be crucial to help support the 60% of people with CF in employment or who are self-employed to remain in work. 

• The Conservatives have pledged to ‘Reform our disability benefits so they are better targeted and reflect people’s genuine needs, while delivering a step change in mental health provision’ and to ‘Tighten up how the benefits system assesses capability for work.’
• Labour have pledged to ‘give disabled people the confidence to start working without the fear of an immediate benefit reassessment if it does not work out’ and say they ‘believe the Work Capability Assessment is not working and needs to be reformed or replaced, alongside a proper plan to support disabled people to work.’
• The Liberal Democrats have pledged to make the benefits system fairer by ‘Bringing Work Capability Assessments in-house' and ‘Reforming Personal Independence Payment assessments to make the process more transparent and stop unnecessary reassessments and end the use of informal assessments.’

Breathing greener 

We want a commitment to improve air quality to help benefit those with lung conditions like CF, including introducing an early alert warning system. In our recent Your life and CF report, 39% of people told us that they were worried about air pollution affecting their health. 

We are also calling for tighter vaping regulation and some party manifestos have pledged to implement better regulation for vaping and a ban on single use vapes. The Trust would welcome these measures which would help those living with lung conditions to protect the air around them. 

• The Conservative party has outlined their plan to ‘introduce the tobacco and vapes bill in [their] first King’s Speech.'
• The Labour Party have pledged to ‘ban vapes from being branded and advertised to appeal to children to stop the next generation from becoming hooked on nicotine.’
• The Liberal Democrats have pledged ‘introducing regulations to halt the dangerous use of vapes by children while recognising their role in smoking cessation for adults, and banning the sale of single use vapes.’

Have your say!

You can write to your local parliamentary candidates ahead of the election telling them about the issues that matter to you. You can find more information on how to get in touch here. 

The elections are UK wide, although some issues such as health are devolved. You can still contact your MSP, MLA or MS on any of the issues outlined too. 

Read the political party manifestos 

• Conservatives
• DUP
• Greens
• Labour
• Liberal Democrats 
• Plaid Cymru
• Reform
• Sinn Fien
• SNP