One Hundred on the Green: More Candidates Back Bill

April 2015 UPDATE – We now have over 200 candidates personally supporting the Campaign for the NHS Reinstatement Bill 2015. See the full list of individuals. The list below is NOT the most up to date.

Over one hundred Green Party candidates for the May General Election have given clear support for the NHS Reinstatement Bill 2015 and there is no sign of that support slowing down. A full list of supporting Green Party candidates is below, and you can also read quotes from many of them here.

But it isn’t just the Greens who are saying this is a good idea: the SNP last week supported the Bill, and more candidates are adding their support all the time. Showing that the NHS is a major election issue that transcends all parties – for all parties, and growing numbers of the public, who are getting behind this Campaign to put the Bill firmly on the agenda in the next Parliament. And so save the NHS from further fragmentation, privatisation, and destruction.

The NHS Reinstatement Bill is unique amongst proposals for changes to the law governing the NHS in having no party affiliation: it is non-partisan. It frames a clear mechanism to protect the NHS against the damage of privatisation, in overturning key aspects of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and earlier legislation that set the NHS in England on the road to fragmentation – often without public consultation, and nearly always without their full awareness.

Far from being yet another ‘top-down, centralised, re-structuring’, crucially it hands responsibility for provision of service back to the Secretary of State for Health, something the HSCA severed – thereby effectively uncoupling ultimate responsibility for the NHS from Parliament. It also spells out how, if the NHS is to be saved, it must abolish competition and the false myth of ‘the market’ in the NHS, re-establish true accountability to the public,  safeguard the NHS against privatisation, and continue to protect the full range of services that the NHS provides.

We’re delighted so many Green Party candidates have voiced their support. It’s encouraging to see candidates for a party which stands for responsible public ownership and an eye to the legacy we leave our descendants say they are behind us. Members of the public, parliamentary candidates, health professionals: all are coming forward to say enough is enough – and this Bill is the way back to a future health service we can be proud to think of protecting.  Helping the Campaign is easy: ask your parliamentary candidates to say what they think of the NHS Reinstatement Bill and let us know.

We all have this one chance to save our one health service: don’t let it pass you by by doing nothing. 

The list of candidates so far: