We delivered a GIANT card for our NHS

5 July 2022

Happy 74th birthday to our NHS!

To mark the occasion we delivered a HUGE birthday card - covered in messages from members of the public - straight to the Department of Health, so that the government could read what you have to say about how to celebrate our NHS...

People passing by stopped to add personal notes of thanks to our health workers and to voice their opposition to privatisation, with the front of the card reading: ‘let’s cut out private profit and rebuild our NHS, so it’s fit for 74 more glorious years!’.

[Pictured: We Own It supporters and Keep Our NHS Public with the card outside the Department of Health in London]

On the 1st July, the Health and Care Act came into law - reorganising the NHS into 45 ‘Integrated Care Systems’, which will oversee NHS decision making regionally. Each of these is headed by a new Integrated Care Board chair, who has the opportunity to put local people before profit by banning private companies from sitting on these new boards.

That’s why people across England also delivered cards to their new local ICS chairs, covered in messages written by supporters from their region and calling for them to give our NHS the birthday gift it needs by:

Pledging that people who work for private companies or have a financial interest in private companies can’t be members of their board or its committees.
Pledging that people with links to private healthcare companies will not be involved in commissioning decisions.
Committing not to outsource or privatise any further NHS services and to produce a plan for a systematic programme of insourcing NHS services currently outsourced when their contracts expire.

So far, 11 chairs have made the pledge to ban private companies from their boards, all thanks to local people taking action and campaigning.

That's why, from Morpeth to Manchester, Sheffield to Swindon, people handed in their cards to say thank you to our NHS and to call upon their local ICS chairs to rebuild our health services by putting the community before profit.

See a selection of photos from the day below, and sign up to our newsletter to be part of the next stage of this campaign! If you have a photo from the action that you'd like to share with us, please email info@weownit.org.uk as we'd love to feature it.