24 September 2020
Toast our NHS and public health teams today to get safe test and trace
It's clear that local public health teams and health services (including GPs and NHS labs) must be put back in charge of testing and contact tracing in the community. Our test and trace system goes from bad to worse with every passing week.
This government hasn't listened to the evidence, so we wanted to get the attention of our decision makers with a stunt. Dressed as beers, we went to Matt Hancock's department to say: Serco couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery!
We need your help to get the message to decision makers today, by raisising a glass and toasting our NHS and public health teams, to show your support for functioning, publicly run Test and Trace across all of the UK.
Please send the government a message with a toast to safe, public test and trace today.
1. Take a photo of yourself with a beverage of your choice and if possible, this placard!
2. To post it on Twitter, simply upload or drag your photo into this pre-drafted tweet, making sure to tag @MattHancock and @ your MP (if they're on Twitter).
3. To post on Facebook, upload your image, making sure to tag your MP's facebook page, @matthancockofficial, and @WeOwnItcampaign. You can use the copy below if you like:
We need to fix test and trace. Local public health teams and our NHS must be put back in charge of testing and contact tracing. That's why I'm toasting the NHS and public health teams today
4. To post on Instagram, upload your image, tag your MP, @matthancockmp and us: @weownit_campaign
5. If you don't have social media, please send your toast to our NHS and public health teams to info@weownit.org.uk, with your MP's named, and we'll get it up on social media!
Comments
Brian Gill replied on Permalink
I agree wholeheartedly with the above comments.
The current government action here shows nothing, but stupidity - and the sacrifice of public health realities to ideological innefficiency and nonsense, rather than the proper pursuit of the country's health.
The key question is, therefore, how best do we act against this betrayal of trust - and proper, relevant action.
Roger Kendrick replied on Permalink
This Government has already wasted £millions of our money on private firms who have let us down so please don't waste any more on companies like Serco and protect the NHS and us all by setting up a NHS and local authority Test and Trace system.
Lynne ISMAIL replied on Permalink
Time and time again servo is shown not to be competent. Please stop allocating track and trace to them
Mitchell Mccarthy replied on Permalink
Let's keep fighting to put an end to Serco and all the others like them, and give the NHS the credit that they deserve.
Elaine Snell replied on Permalink
Shouldn’t the public decide who the contact goes to since it’s funded by their (public) money?
Collette Hosseini replied on Permalink
Track & trace should not be given to private companies to make a profit.
Marion Tollervey replied on Permalink
Another example of millions wasted by the government by employing private companies
Marrilyn Eden replied on Permalink
Stop wasting money to servo and other private companies! Concentrate on Our NHS!!!
Kate Ferry replied on Permalink
England is the only part of the world not using the public health officers for doing the job they have been trained to do.This Brexit Government has an anti pulic service obsession, and it's killing us.
Alan Graham replied on Permalink
It wouldn't be so bad if these companies were actually good at it but the list of failures is growing all the time. We can only jump to conclusions about why the same companies keep getting the work, even when they have already proved their incompetence.
Fortunately, Group4 aren't doing the testing...
Martin Reddy replied on Permalink
Serco has proved time and again that they are not capable of providing the kind of service the people of this country demand and deserve. However, this government seems hell bent on throwing hard earned public money at this inept company and for what reason. Is it because they can not see what the rest of us can see or is it pure political dogma? What ever it is please stop doing it as it doesn't make good financial sense.
Michael John Hi... replied on Permalink
When in employment I received private health service,. but now as an octogenarian I rely on tne N H S who have served me
well
Peter Dunmill replied on Permalink
I am concerned that a private company run by a close relative of a Tory MP, and without any experience of the Health and Welfare sector’s, gets huge amounts of public money thrown at them . When clearly,through past history, their track records on government contracts are less than inspiring.
Give our NHS the money and they will do a brilliant job, as always.
Health and Welfare services should be remain in the public domain, and not for profit.
Jayne Gilsenan replied on Permalink
Stop giving money to private companies !!!
John & Cath Hanley replied on Permalink
Test & Trace must now be given to the NHS to run properly
Andrew Sayer replied on Permalink
The NHS, not private companies with no proven competence in health care, should be responsible for track and trace. Giving huge amounts of money to such companies - often ones with ties to the Conservative Party - is both absurd and corrupt.
Peter replied on Permalink
I cannot understand why disgraced private profiteers like Serco and G4S (didn't they do well at the Olympics? Not) can be repeatedly given contracts that they Absolutely Do Not deserve, taking Our tax money and then not even doing the job? Are they big tory party donors? Something very fishy about all this, should be investigated and STOPPED.
Lindsey March replied on Permalink
This government is a disgrace to democracy
David Tetley replied on Permalink
It's an absolute disgrace, I am sick and tired of this so called government finding sneaky ways to privatize OUR NHS, and using the Pandemic that people are very concerned about to hide the fact that they are slowly selling OUR NHS. This has to stop now. We can all stop this by working together
Gina Bridgeland. replied on Permalink
End this dangerous opportunism now! Companies such as Serco have no business ANYWHERE in our economy, least of all in life-and-death services such as track and trace. Ministers such as Matt Hancock are ideologically committed to privatisation of the NHS, by stealth so that the public isn't alerted to their nefarious schemes, and see the pandemic not as the tremendous national tragedy it is, but as an opportunity to give out fat contracts (without any proper scrutiny and against expert advice from public health practitioners)to their chums.
Judith Stergios replied on Permalink
Serco and Sipel have made a mess of track and trace so why does the government continue to give the lots of public money well we all know why !
Maggie Westby replied on Permalink
I'm concerned that our 3-pronged battle with Coronavirus (immunity in some, targeted lockdown and social distancing to limit transmission, and tracing and self-isolation of people who have been exposed to the virus) is being sabotaged in the Test and Trace stage. And why are we missing this vital opportunity?
Tracing should be done by local, trained public health professionals and GPs, and not call centres belonging to private companies who don't know about healthcare and who are not making it work. We need to sort this out NOW. How dare the Government put people's lives at risk in this way?
- see recent British Medical Journal (BMJ) blog: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/09/24/karl-friston-how-should-we-respond-to-an-upsurge-in-covid-19-cases/
Kash Singh replied on Permalink
I am concerned about public money being sent directly to private companies who have no health and welfare experience and who continue to subcontract. All with no scrutiny by parliament. Covid is an excuse to support corrupt funding practices and must be stopped. The NHS is being deliberately marginalised. Private companies must NOT carry an NHS logo!
Tony Greenway replied on Permalink
The vast amounts of public money to be transferred to NHS and Local Authorities and the Tory Baroness with no relevant experience to be sacked and replaced with a competent administrator with a proven track record.
ALL our lives are at serious risk under the current shambolic mess!!!
karen bennett replied on Permalink
I do NOT trust this government time and again they are proving money counts give the public money to our NHS who know how to set up track and trace
Mike Akehurst replied on Permalink
Stop wasting our money on private companies ,but being tories you love privatisation ,money for your boys.
A Nightingale replied on Permalink
We should not even need to debate this subject..!!
The fact is, and has ALWAYS been, clear!
You cannot hand PUBLIC SERVICES over to profit seeking private companies; BECAUSE THE FIRST PRIORITY OF PRIVATE COMPANIES IS NOT IN SERVING THE PUBLIC..!! Their first and ONLY real priority is too secure profit (and therefore a cash return for the owner\investors) ..!!
This is a PATENTLY OBVIOUS FACT and always has been.
Any Eton or Oxbridge educated politician, who claims not to understand this, IS A LIAR..!!
Hazel Davidson replied on Permalink
I believe that private companies such as Serco should not be allowed to do Test and Trace - they don't have the expertise and they are just taking our money and doing very little while charging the earth. Public bodies - the NHS and local councils - have better information and do the job much better. But they have been starved of funds, they barely have enough to carry out their legal duties. This is all wrong. The Government should not be handing money to Serco and others without any tendering process. Give it to the NHS and local government instead - they will do it better and cheaper.
Anonymous replied on Permalink
Stop spending billions on a shabby privatised test and trace system. Private companies are costing our NHS billions already, give a very poor service and are not monitored!
Money for old rope!
Mike Topp replied on Permalink
parliament should oversee government actions and government should not sub contract to private companies without due care
Margaret Gray replied on Permalink
I agree with a previous comment that private companies should not display the NHS logo!
Stop wasting the public money on incompetent, money grabbing private companies.
Frederick Murphy replied on Permalink
Track and trace is anything but world beating ,could it be the private companies you are using?
Yvonne Wilson replied on Permalink
I think it is scandalous that the Government is wasting tax payers money on outsourcing test and trace to private companies such as Serco, who have a bad track record and no experience in working with health services. These decisions are ideological and little to do with giving the public a fit for purpose testing system.
Darren Kiggins replied on Permalink
We need to stop the Tory scum at al and their friends running this country into a zombie republic and laughing stock of the world. Do you agree Dido Harding?
John Zebedee replied on Permalink
The government has had to spend countless millions on the NHS and supporting jobs and the economy but there is no excuse for wasting tax payers money on private companies that are failing to deliver on track and trace.
Richard Mitchley replied on Permalink
Private companies care about profit and not health. Mr Hancock take a note from Scotland and Wales and do it properly not pay hundreds of millions to a private company who don't care at all. Surely common sense would be to let the NHS run the app and not some company, shame on you!
Ron Branton replied on Permalink
We must now all accept that we have a total dishonest, incompetent government that we can no longer trust and we will have to accept through constant messaging and using whatever media we can will be the only way we can get things done, they will go down in history as the worst government ever to be elected and the worst for consistently lying to the British people. They try to accommodate many areas of their responsibility, by passing it on to private companies because of there incompetence to sort it themselves, making things even worse. We are certainly in serious trouble with these people.
Joan Fryer replied on Permalink
Since 2010 when the Tory government came to power, I must have signed thousands of petitions and donated more than I care to think about - the first I signed was a 38 Degree petition to stop Caroline Spelman selling off our forests. All of this has been essential because we have a government who have nothing but contempt for ordinary people who are the doctors, nurses, scientists, lawyers, engineers, police officers, fire & rescue officers, school teachers, key workers I could go on. Tory politicians are so arrogant they think they know best which they absolutely do not which is why there have been so many deaths from Covid 19. They fear socialism because they consider leaving everything to the markets is the answer - profit - profit - profit which also includes corruption. They would rather engage with private companies that know absolutely nothing about specialised fields but that doesn't matter as long as they contribute to Tory coffers - this is why this country is now the equivalent to a totalitarian state bordering on a rogue state because they ignore professionalism and think they are above the law.
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