National Care Service Campaign

Dr Arun Baksi, Former Emeritus Consultant Physician and Founder Director of Our NHS Our Concern, is leading a Campaign for a National Care Service and would like your support. 

Dr Baksi explains more here:

In our campaign we are asking the government to remove all organisational and legal obstacles to enable the establishment of a unified care system that would bring about hospital care, primary care, community and social care into one functional unit at all local areas, with each local area under a common budget.

Despite numerous interventions, including a Royal Commission, over the last 40 years the problems that the care sectors experienced remain the same but are worse. There is no reason to believe that the current White Paper before Parliament would do any better. Indeed, integrated, the word used, could not be further from the meaning of the word. What we have proposed is a fundamental change in the way care services are delivered and funded.

The two major political parties have shown themselves to be incapable of understanding the root causes of the difficulties that the care sectors have faced over the years. Our campaign must create a public demand for change. This would require at least 50,000 signatures, if not more, by the end of this year for the media to get interested. Once this happens, we would be on the winning lap.

To achieve the number required we must establish a country wide chain of Campaign Champions, who would volunteer to recruit new signatures and to cascade the message.

If you would be interested in this role please email Arun at baksi@baksi.co.uk for further information.

The Centre for Welfare Reform supports the campaign for a National Care Service. Such a care service will need to be democratically and locally accountable - and this should hold for health and social care. It is time to end the terrible means-testing and rationing of social care - which is effectively a tax on disabled people.