For healthcare, Starmer's two years in office will be remembered for this shock announcement of NHSE abolition in March 2025 and progress on reducing waiting lists.

In his resignation speech this morning, Starmer said his Government had overseen ‘the fastest fall in NHS waiting lists for 17 years'.

Former health and social care secretary Wes Streeting announced on the day of his resignation from Starmer's Government on 14 May that the Government had hit its interim target of 65% of patients receiving treatment within 18 weeks by March 2026.

The Government remains some way off its end of Parliament target of 92% of patients waiting less than 18 weeks, however.

While debate has continued over whether the Government has made the right choice in focusing on elective targets rather than GP access, for example.

Leaders react

Nuffield Trust fellow, Bea Taylor, said Starmer was ‘arguably' the first prime minister since 2008 to not see the waiting list rise substantially during his time in office.

Taylor cautioned, however, that a return to waiting times not seen for a decade would require ‘steady improvement over several years, not just short-term leaps'.

‘Focusing on quick wins to hit targets is not what people on the waiting list need right now,' Taylor said.

Consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Lorin Lakasing said the current turbulence in Government highlighted why the NHS needed to be taken outside party politics.

Dr Lakasing said: ‘The media focus on how political instability affects the markets and the economy, but few spare a thought for how this also affects public services.

‘The constant cycling through prime ministers and health secretaries that has defined the last few years in British politics is obstructing meaningful change for the better in maternity care and contributing to public dissatisfaction with the service, as parents and families are left suffering the effects of a string of broken promises and thwarted attempts to improve matters.

‘The numerous arm's length organisations affiliated to the NHS such as NHS England, were supposed to provide the stability which politicians are seemingly unable to, but they have proved to be wasteful and ineffective because the people they employ know nothing of how the service functions at the shop-floor level. It is high time we create a non-party political leadership structure which engages only those with frontline experience in decision-making roles and focuses on clinical outcome data, not popularity ratings in opinion polls.'

Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of The King's Fund, called on the next prime minister to ‘champion good health in all policies, as well as to finally deliver on the reform of adult social care'.

She noted Starmer's achievement on a social media ban for young people and delivery of smoking ban legislation as a template on prevention for his successor to follow.