Three Commitments for Our NHS (letter writing campaign)
Dear [MP’s name],
I am writing as one of your constituents to ask you to champion Three Commitments for Our NHS and to urge the Prime Minister to make them an early priority for his government.
The NHS remains one of Britain’s greatest achievements. It has been damaged by years of underinvestment, workforce shortages, fragmentation and growing reliance on private providers, but it is not beyond repair. With clear political leadership and a renewed commitment to public service, it can once again provide the safe, high-quality care that patients and staff deserve.
I hope you will encourage the Prime Minister to make three clear commitments.
1. Protect and rebuild our public NHS
Please ask the Prime Minister to reaffirm his commitment to an NHS that is publicly funded, publicly provided and publicly accountable. Investment in our NHS should be recognised as an investment in Britain’s health, productivity and future prosperity, not simply as a cost to be contained.
2. Put the public’s interest before private profit
The public deserves confidence that NHS decisions are made solely in the interests of patients.
Please urge the Prime Minister to introduce the highest standards of transparency and integrity in NHS policy, procurement and contracting. This should include stronger safeguards against conflicts of interest, greater transparency over commercial influence, reviewing poor-value private contracts, protecting NHS data, and ensuring that public money is used to strengthen NHS services rather than generate unnecessary private profit.
3. Make safe emergency care a national priority
Too many patients are experiencing unsafe delays, overcrowded emergency departments and corridor care and over 300 are dying avoidably each week. This should never become accepted as normal.
Please ask the Prime Minister to make urgent and emergency care a national patient safety priority by increasing NHS capacity, supporting the workforce, making maternity services safe again, improving access to GPs and community services, expanding social care to reduce delayed discharge, and ensuring that patient safety, not simply waiting list statistics, is at the heart of NHS recovery.
These three commitments would demonstrate that the new government is determined to restore confidence in one of our country’s most valued public institutions. They would show that the NHS will once again be guided by the principles of public service, integrity and patient safety.
These commitments can begin to be delivered immediately through practical action. I hope you will encourage the Prime Minister to consider early measures such as:
- The Government making a commitment to a publicly funded, publicly provided and publicly accountable NHS.
- Investing in NHS staff, hospital capacity, GP services and NHS buildings as national infrastructure that strengthens both public health and the economy.
- Announcing an end to new outsourcing of clinical and support NHS services. Reducing reliance on outsourcing by rebuilding NHS capacity and reviewing poor-value private contracts to ensure taxpayers’ money is spent in the public interest.
- Insisting on the highest standards of transparency and integrity in NHS decision-making, including stronger safeguards against conflicts of interest and undue commercial influence.
- A decision this autumn to end the Palantir contract for the NHS federated data platform (FDP) when the term ends in February.
- Protecting NHS data and procurement by ensuring that all major contracts meet clear tests of public value, accountability and ethical governance.
- Making urgent and emergency care a national patient safety priority by funding social care to reduce delayed hospital discharge and increase staffed hospital beds to end corridor care, and improving access to general practice and community services . .
I would be grateful if you would champion these Three Commitments for Our NHS, raise them with the Prime Minister and Health Secretary, speak up for them in Parliament whenever opportunities arise, and let me know what steps you will take to help secure them.
Thank you for taking the time to consider my concerns. I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely,
[Name]
[Address]
[Postcode]
