Dear NHS Supporter
We are launching a project to encourage as many
people as possible to send messages to their politicians
about the future of the NHS. As they prepare for the
general election our political parties must face up to the
real problems being created by NHS commercialisation, which
is undermining patient care and wasting precious resources.
A long list of NHS staff organisations are now against the
NHS market and the public do not want to see commercial
values at the heart of our health service.
You can help by sending a letter to each of your local
politicians. This doesn’t have to be time consuming as
you could use or adapt the letter below. Also the website
www.writetothem.com will
give you the names of your councillors, MEP and MPs and an
easy way to contact them.
So
it could be as quick as sending 2 or 3 emails.
Sample letter (full version below)
Dear MP/Councillor/MEP,
I will be strongly deterred from voting for you at the
next election unless your party plans to stop our NHS from
being run for profit at the expense of patient care. I have
five key concerns...
Two more things would really help,
Please forward this request to your friends and
colleagues too. You
will be helping to ensure that politicians all over the
country are contacted as they plan their campaigns for
the next general election, so we must do it urgently.
Also please send us an email to say who you have
contacted and
the replies you receive (
david@nhscampaign)
Finally if you would like to find out more about the work of
the
NHS
Support Federation or
support us with a donation visit our website
www.
nhscampaign.org. Your help is very much
appreciated. NHS supporters must act together!
With thanks
Paul Evans
Director, NHS Support Federation
* Feel free to use and adapt our template letter below
Dear MP/Councillor/MEP,
I will be strongly deterred from voting for you at the next
election unless your party plans to stop our NHS from being
run for profit at the expense of patient care. I have five
key concerns:
1. Safety
is being put at risk by using private companies. I do
not want my safety compromised for the sake of profits.
Tragically there have been avoidable deaths in private
treatment centres doing out-sourced NHS operations – in one
case because the clinic didn’t even have blood on-site. How
will you protect patients?
2. So
much money is being wasted. I want my taxes to be spent
on a better health service, not to go to private
shareholders or be wasted on bureaucracy. Stop diverting
money away from front-line care into pointless tendering,
contracts, lawyers, billing and now even NHS advertising.
This is the reality of the market – costs we simply don’t
need. What will you do to stop this waste?
3. Financial
pressures are coming before patient care. I want the
priority of NHS managers to be the patients, not achieving
financial success and creating a surplus in the new market
health service. We saw what this leads to at
Mid-Staffordshire hospital where the death rate ballooned
because managers were distracted by their financial goals.
Will you fight for patients?
4. PFI
is bleeding the NHS dry. Hospitals that cost £8bn to
build will end up costing £53bn under the private finance
initiative because of interest payments and profit – it’s
like buying hospitals on a credit card. What’s worse is that
much of the money goes to the same big banks that the
taxpayer had to bail out. The government should use its
shareholder position to renegotiate the agreements. Will you
campaign for PFI to be scrapped?
5. In
Scotland and Wales they are showing that there is an
alternative. In Wales prescription charges have been
abolished; in Scotland the NHS has not been forced into
wasteful competition. Markets don’t work in healthcare –
just look at the vastly expensive American system. Why
should England go down the US path while the Welsh and
Scottish governments are showing another route is possible
and more popular with patients? Will you work to end this
disparity?
I know that the large amount of investment in the NHS over
recent years has brought progress, but I am frustrated that
the gains have been undermined by market reforms that have
been unnecessary, wasteful and have compromised safety. This
is not only the opinion of patients but of medical
professionals and health workers, including the BMA, RCN,
Unite and Unison. To secure my vote you must stand up
against health service commercialisation.
Yours
_______________
