This blog will be slightly more partisan than the rest because some of the more disreputable voices in the Labour party, and I would include Labour health spokesman Wes Streeting in this, have talked casually and very misleadingly about Victorian diseases in recent years. One particular Victorian disease that New Labour bequeathed to the Coalition and subsequent governments was elevated levels of tuberculosis, TB. 
This chart is taken from the NHS Tuberculosis in England, 2022 report which includes data up to 2021. It shows the rate of TB notifications. TB is formally a notifiable disease and clinicians have a statutory duty to report it. TB fell to a comparatively low point in 1986 but started creeping up again in the 90s. It peaked from 2005 and kept around the 15 notifications per 100,000 population mark until it finally reached its highest point in 2011, hitting 15.6 notifications per 100,000. 
I am not quite sure why it was allowed to creep up but if you read the report you will find that most TB is imported, particularly from the Indian subcontinent. I can’t help thinking that the same squeamishness that caused grooming gangs to be ignored in Northern cities kept TB on the back burner. 
Since the 2011 peak the NHS has embarked on a huge action plan to reduce incidence of TB in England. The latest figures available for TB date back to 2021 and they show a rate of 7.8 notifications per 100,000 population. As well as precisely halving TB in a decade for the first time ever England has fallen below the WHO benchmark for a low incidence TB country, which is 10 per 100,000.
So, my third NHS win is halving the incidence of TB in 10 years. 
Phil Taylor 