What do we want from our NHS and how should we pay for it.

Thank goodness the fires of protest about the NHS have been lit and are illuminating some of the darker corners of this governments dodgy conduct towards it. Long may they burn and expose the danger the NHS faces in the hands of the Cameron/Clegg conspirators and their privatisation plans.

I would like to know, papaoscar, what links newspaper proprietors have with healthcare companies. I wonder if there is any way to find out. Few newspapers have written as much about the NHs privatisation as the Guardian, yet it has been in the public domain.

Could be some indicators here, Dj, of preparations and consequences:

www.forbes.com/sites/davechase/2012/02/09/healthcare-ceos-guide-to-avoiding-newspaper-industry-mistakes/

This is a very interesting thread and I realise I have doubled up on it by starting a discussion called Disappearance of the NHS. Sorry about that. I posted in that thread just now a report from today's Guardian setting out what private companies have gained from NHS England over the last financial year. Here it is again.

www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/27/nhs-england-millions-pounds-private-companies

It's not how I feel NHS money should be being spent. I agree it's better to try and not get too political because then discussions can get quite heated but there are some really big questions here for us as a society. It's all got so complicated. I'm finding that most people have no idea what is going on and usually it's those who are ill who are the ones who know, which is a bit sad to say the least.

Lockheed Martin have pulled out of negotiations over the NHS, thanks to a petition by Sumofus. It works.

I'm very surprised that such a large, powerful organisation would be swayed by an online petition.

Ana These extracts from the 38 Degrees website strongly suggest that petitions and campaigns are influential:

• In July, 38 Degrees members swarmed on Downing Street and stopped Syngenta’s attempt to lift an EU-wide ban on bee-killing pesticides.

• In August, together we took on retail giant Matalan with a huge petition, emails and calls to its managers ...... Eventually Matalan coughed up £60,000 for the compensation fund of the victims of the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh.

• In November, in just 24 hours a whopping 150,000 of us signed a petition calling the government not to sell off our forests. We helped organisations like Save our Woods push the government to enshrine protection of our forests in law.

•Chris and the Dorset Hospital Campaign saved their local hospital lab from privatisation

• a partnership campaign with Women’s Aid pushed the government to commit £10m to keep women’s refuges open.

Of course, there is no guarantee that some of these issues will not be resurrected again once the limelight is off them, so there is no room for complacency.

Here's some other good news, but not for Cameron and Hunt.

nhap.org/voters-odds-nhs-cameron-hunt-constituencies/

Clive Peedell is standing against Cameron, and Louise Irving against Hunt.

Whoopee!

I think the NHA and UKIP between them are going to provide quite an upset in this coming election. Our local GPs are fielding an NHA candidate and are strongly against privatization and TTIP being allowed to have any influence over the NHS.