Help us run a Public Poll on NHS Privatisation

For the past 4 decades, politicians have pushed through policies that have enabled NHS privatisation in various ways, but they have never held a public referendum.

They have no mandate to do any of this, and we now have a situation where thousands of NHS services are actually run by external organisations (including private companies).

The situation is impacting both NHS patients, and the dedicated staff that care for them. 

1. Many of the external organisations take on short-term contracts to provide NHS services. This means that healthcare teams often change frequently, which impacts on crucial staff-patient relationships. 

2. The contract tendering itself creates a huge amount of admin and bureaucracy, and upheaval in the NHS. 

3. The introduction of private companies and external organisations into the NHS has fragmented the very architecture of our public healthcare system. 

As a campaigning organisation fighting for the future of the NHS, we hear every day from patients and staff about the negative impact privatisation is having on the NHS.

The NHS is in crisis right now. NHS staff have been treated poorly for many years by the government, and we now have chronic NHS staffing problems. There are almost 8 million patients on NHS waiting lists in England alone. Many politicians are saying that *more* privatisation will help beyond the next General Election, but there is no evidence that privatisation makes things more efficient in the NHS, and the politicians haven’t asked the public what they think. 

We think it is time for the public to have their say, and so we are raising £25,000 to run a huge new campaign. We want to commission public polling to find out what people think about involving privatisation in the NHS. Once we have these answers, we’ll run a huge public awareness campaign about what we find. 

EveryDoctor is connected to over 400,000 people already, through our online network. We’re hoping to connect to millions more through this campaign. 

How will we do it? 

If we hit our crowdfunding goal…

1. We will work with a polling organisation to commission questions, which they will send to thousands of people of different ages and backgrounds to find out what they think. 

2. Our team will then run a public awareness campaign about our findings. 

a) We will create eye-catching materials including posters, videos, fact sheets and more, to enable our network to tell others about what is happening and what the public thinks. 

b) We will ensure that these materials are free and easy to download and share. Some people interact on social media, others like to receive an email, or a whatsapp message, or watch a video, or print out a leaflet. We will create a range of materials that are easy to understand and easy to access, so that everyone can get involved in the easiest way possible. 

Politicians have no mandate to privatise the NHS. Please help us to find out what the public actually thinks about it, and then we’ll tell as many people as we possibly can.

Any funds exceeding our Crowdfund target will be used to continue our work fighting for a better NHS for all NHS staff and patients.