PRESS RELEASE : Greens back new campaign to end NHS privatisation [October 2022]
The press release issued by the Green Party on 20 October 2022.
The Green Party has thrown its support behind a new campaign to ask NHS leaders to pledge to end NHS privatisation. The We Own It campaign is launched against a backdrop of new Oxford University research that links outsourcing in the NHS between 2013 and 2020 to 557 preventable deaths.
Zack Polanski, deputy leader of the Green Party, will speak at the launch event today. He is expected to say:
“We need to keep the NHS publicly funded, publicly provided and free at the point of use. That’s all health services including dental services – people’s health should never be up for auction.
“The Green Party have, and will always, oppose introducing market forces and competition into our NHS. It was Green Party MP Caroline Lucas who in 2015 put forward the cross-party NHS Reinstatement Bill in Parliament, to reinstate the NHS based on its founding principles and reverse the creeping marketisation of the health service.
“Let’s remember the NHS belongs to us all – and we will always be there to make the argument alongside you that we own it.”
In 2021 Green Party conference passed a motion calling for a 15% pay rise for NHS workers and at this year’s conference voted for the introduction of a £15 an hour minimum wage for all workers and pledged support for all trade union campaigns that aim to achieve wage increases to match the cost of living.
