Public satisfaction with the NHS has risen for the first time since 2019, but people remain deeply frustrated with stubbornly long waits to receive GP, A&E or hospital care.

The proportion of voters in Britain satisfied with the way the NHS runs has increased from the record low of 21% seen last year to 26%. At the same time dissatisfaction with the health service fell 8% – the biggest drop since 1998 – although it remains high at 51%.

Wes Streeting hailed the findings as proof that the NHS, which he said was “broken” when Labour won power in July 2024, was now “on the road to recovery”.

The health secretary will cite them as evidence of progress in a speech on Wednesday in which he will set out plans to improve care at five badly performing health trusts.

Bosses at those organisations face being sacked and replaced by service veterans, while failing trusts could be merged with successful ones, under a new “NHS intensive recovery programme” starting next month.

The figures on public satisfaction with the NHS were revealed in the latest annual British Social Attitudes survey. Health experts warned that the “bounce” in approval did not necessarily mark “a decisive turning point” in the government’s determined drive to revive the service’s flagging fortunes.

The King’s Fund and Nuffield Trust health thinktanks, which analysed the BSA data, said the findings represented “green shoots” of recovery and would give Streeting “relief and joy”. One said they showed the NHS was in the early stages of a recovery like the one it underwentduring Tony Blair’s time in power.

But they also cautioned that the survey of 3,400 people in England, Scotland and Wales revealed only “fragile improvements” in NHS performance 21 months after Labour took power and that the public remained “very, very unhappy”.

The findings show that:

• Only 22% are satisfied with A&E and dentistry.

• GP services and hospital care score better, but only 36% and 37% are satisfied with them.

• Just 50% are satisfied with the quality of care the NHS provides and just 16% think it will improve over the next five years.

• Satisfaction with social care is just 14%.

Delays in accessing care continue to cause public unhappiness. Most people are dissatisfied with the time it takes to get seen in A&E (66%), receive hospital care (63%) and get a GP appointment (58%). Only 14% are satisfied with A&E waiting times.

Mark Dayan, head of public affairs at the Nuffield Trust, said: “These are still numbers that you would have thought were catastrophic in the 2010s. They’re still worse than they were even during the 90s, a period when the public was widely perceived to be very unhappy about the NHS.”

The rise in satisfaction “is a glimmer on the horizon, but the public mood remains dark”, he added.

The government’s main pledge on the NHS is to get back to 92% of those on the waiting list being seen within 18 weeks by 2029. However, the public’s top two priorities for the NHS are different – faster access to see a GP and get treated in A&E – the BSA survey found.

Dan Wellings, a senior fellow at The King’s Fund, said: “Frustration with waiting times remains deeply embedded, and many people still feel that access to NHS care is difficult. Either it’s too hard to get through the front door or they are in a queue that barely moves”

Streeting said: “When this government came to office, I said that while the NHS was broken, it wasn’t beaten. Patients are beginning to feel the change and the NHS is showing that things can get better.

“The biggest drop in dissatisfaction since 1998 doesn’t happen by accident. It is thanks to the government’s investment and modernisation, all of which has been hard fought but is now delivering results.”

The backlog of hospital care is shrinking, more patients are being seen in A&E within four hours and ambulance response times to 999 calls are improving, he said.

“The NHS is on the road to recovery, but there’s a lot of road ahead. My foot is pressing down on the accelerator and I won’t stop until the job is done”, he added.

The five struggling NHS trusts where improvement action will be targeted are the North Cumbria integrated care trust, Mid and South Essex trust, Hull university teaching hospitals trust, Northern Lincolnshire and Goole trust and East Kent hospitals trust.