Keep Our NHS Public is a non-party-political organisation campaigning against the privatisation and underfunding of the NHS.

 

We campaign to reverse the privatisation and commercialisation of health and social care and to call for health and social care services to be publicly funded, publicly provided and accountable provision. Find out more here.

​

We've called the People's Covid Inquiry because we believe the pandemic has exposed the ways in which the NHS is essential to the health and well-being of the entire population and that in order to save lives we must learn lessons now.  You can read our mission statement about the inquiry here. 

​

WHAT WE STAND FOR:

 

NHS and social care service funded by the public

​

Available to all on the basis of need – we all need health and social care at some time in our lives, but the unlucky ones need more.  We pool our resources and share the risk so that if we are one of the unlucky ones, we are covered by collective provision – to each according to their need.  Public funding should be drawn from progressive taxation, from each according to their ability to pay, with a taxation system that ensures people pay their fair share and taxes the rich appropriately.

​

Service delivered by staff employed by the public

​

No one should be delivering health or care services who has a vested interest which leads them to divert from the principle of meeting need – either in pursuit of personal gain or profit for a private sector body.  We need to be able to trust that the people who care for us have our best interests at heart. Staff should be directly employed with jobs designed to ensure they can give their best to meet the clinical and personal needs of the people they care for.  This applies to all clinical and care staff but also to non-clinical staff such as receptionists and clerical staff, porters and cleaners who make a significant contribution to the quality of the service.  Senior leaders should be judged by how well the core values are demonstrated in the actions of their staff.

​

Service accountable to the public

​

We delegate responsibility to government for organising health and social care services and we hold government to account for its stewardship. Health and social care are complex, multi-level services so accountability systems need to reflect this at a national, regional and local level.  An essential element of accountability is a high degree of transparency in all aspects of the performance of health and social care services.

​

Who is the public? 

 

We are – all of us who live in this country. We know even more clearly now that the health of each of us is dependent on the health of all of us.  We are genuinely all in this together. No-one should be asked to pay twice, as with migrants who pay through an up-front charge as well as through their taxes, and no one should be denied treatment, as is done through racist policies like the 'Hostile Environment'.