NHS Ads: Lansley has his fingers in his ears

I would like to have some form of car sticker for save NHS I would be happy to pay for this and it would spread the word

awesome work guys!

fingers crossed this helps to do the job

Brilliant!  Well done on so many!

Well Done.  This is what I call democracy!

I printed the page out of the Metro, cut it out and stuck it in the back window of my car.  Keep up the good work folks…A BIG change is gonna come!

So you’ve put ads in the Mail, the Express and the Mirror – papers which no-one with half a brain reads – but didn’t target any one of the Telegraph, the Times or the Independent? Missed opportunity there, methinks…

How arrogant – and ignorant!

The Telegraph’s omission isn’t clever, I agree, but the Mail and the Express reader would never see anything much against this policy for the NHS were it not for an ad. such as this.
I presume the Sun wouldn’t take it, because that’s the one that should have been targeted rather than the Labour supporting Mirror.

It’s just a shame the NHS part wasn’t more visible, Johnny. When you said that ‘NHS’ was cut out of the version you showed us yesterday, I wasn’t expecting it to be a measly background image with poor contrast.  No common sense was used for that, it seems.

I’m thinking about putting an advert in the press saying, ‘Chatterton didn’t listen’, frankly.  Sorry to be so harsh, but I think the ad should have had something in visible bold letters saying, ‘Save the NHS’, as many people said in the feedback.  NHS only gets an appearance deep in the text.  It should have gone more for the jugular. I expect Lansley will be well pleased with the exercise.  Millions will ignore this, just as Lansley wants to ignore the millions.

Don’t suppose there’s any more money left for a revised re-run later this week?

I disagree, I think the ad works really well with the ethereal NHS floating next to his ear. Good work!

So you’re criticising Lansley for not listening, but can you show me in what way you listened to all the recommendations made to improve the poster design because I’m not seeing any. I think you have just blown a lot of money on a poorly thought out campaign

Why doesn’t your ad point out that it’s only the English NHS that is affected by coalition reforms?

By presenting this as “THE NHS” you are letting British politicians off the hook. They are only to happy to present English issues as UK issues as it helps them ignore the unaccountability issue of the West Lothian Question, the England question in general and the underfunding of English services.

It’s called asymmetric devolution and it’s been around a long time now. When will 38 degrees catch up? It was exactly the same thing with the “Save our forests” campaign – only English forests were being sold.

Hi, congrats on getting five ads in the papers (not yet read them), with all the difficulties involved. Sorry I wasn’t in on the suggestions stage (only just seen, and read many of, the pre-ad suggestions). So my “feedback” here as requested by you (but can no longer find these earlier posts) is not on the ads themselves, but on Cookie’s good but over-long suggested copy — to take it a stage further: as a demonstration in principle of how to construct ads for maximum effect. 

(The effectiveness of ads is still the hardest form of marketing to assess: so their value in terms of £ spent on them is seldom known without some built-in device (eg code for specific newspaper/ issue date) that links each reader response to each ad source, to identify it. Response to a website should make that easier. I’ve done a fair amount of ad copywriting & design for advertisers in a national mazine, done journalism course etc, to support anything said here.)

The old ad principle “AIDA” still rules for sequence and emphasis of info presented: first grab the reader’s ATTENTION, give further INFORMATION to arouse DESIRE (to do something it), ending with ACTION (how to take it).

Statements / sentences need to be short, simple and direct. (Cut out all excess small words & complex grammatical constructions.)  
Aim for brevity: the fewest words used, the more telling. (Eg repeat “our NHS” for identity rather than spelling out “our health service” — we all know what NHS stands for.) 
Space statements to avert important individual points getting lost. (The Sun separates every sentence even in body text of articles — a good principle for ads; not everyone is a Guardian reader.) 
Use judicious repetition: eg to tie end of INFORMATION (Cookie’s “Many experts are warning. . .” text moved higher up, before ACTION appeal) back to opening warnings. (“It won’t any more if the changes go through” is therefore added.) 
Throughout: use plenty of punctuation to make copy more “interesting”. 
Use capitalisation & / or Bold to emphasise important statements, phrases & individual words. (The result might look hysterical, but it grabs attention.)

NHS “LISTENING” EXERCISE? DO YOU BELIEVE IT? 
David Cameron and Health Minister Andrew Lansley are gagging the nation!

They have FAILED to listen to NHS doctors’, nurses’, and other health professionals’ warnings: that proposed changes will mean DISASTER for the NHS. 

Now they want to stop YOU having YOUR say too.

IN PUBLIC, Cameron & Lansley want you to believe they’re “consulting” us about planned NHS changes.

IN PRIVATE, they’ve done everything they can to BIAS the “listening exercise”.  Andrew Lansley has stage-managed most “consultation” events, CLOSING them to the public — for officially invited, approved guests only.  Behind the scenes, health officials have been told to CARRY ON WITH LANSLEY’S ORIGINAL PLANS.

Many experts are warning these plans will result in an AMERICAN-STYLE HEALTH SERVICE: run by private, profiteering companies, at the expense of those already struggling to pay bills. Our existing NHS may be imperfect, but it serves every one of us at the point of need. It won’t any more if the changes go through.

ON 31 MAY, THE NHS “CONSULTATION” PERIOD ENDS.
 
If YOU want to stop the government’s planned changes to “our” NHS, DON’T LET CAMERON & LANSLEY STOP YOU MAKING YOUR VOICE HEARD.
HAVE YOUR SAY TO CAMERON & LANSLEY HERE:

THIS AD is funded by the 300,000 members of “38 Degrees”, a non-political organisation that brings people together to take action on national issues that matter to us. We succeeded in getting the government to drop its plans to sell off nationally-owned woodlands. WILL YOU JOIN US? How to: 

Adaped from Cookie’s suggested copy:

David Cameron and his Health Minister, Andrew Lansley, have joined forces to gag the nation. They have so far failed to listen to the doctors, nurses, and other health professionals who warn that the proposed changes will mean disaster for the NHS, and now they want to stop you having your say too.

In public, Cameron & Lansley want you to believe that they’re consulting us all about the changes.  In private, they know that they’ve done everything they can to bias the “listening exercise”.  Andrew Lansley has stage-managed most of the consultation events by making them closed to the public, for officially invited, approved guests only.  Behind the scenes, health officials have been told to carry on with Lansley’s original plans.

If you are like us, you won’t want the government to bring in their planned changes to our NHS, that many experts are warning will result in an American-style health service run by private, profiteering companies, to the disadvantage of those already struggling to pay bills.  Our health service may not be perfect, but it serves every one of us at the point of need.  Don’t let Cameron & Lansley stop you making your voice heard.

The consultation period is up on [insert date].  Here’s how to have your say:

[insert some blurb about (1) how to engage with Cameron & Lansley, and (2) how to join 38 degrees, a non-partisan organisation that brings people together to take action on the issues that matter to you, and its 300,000 members]

I don’t come from arty-farty designer-led land, but like to face the cold, hard facts of reality.  People won’t see that in their busy lives of spending just a second to take in a newspaper page. Sorry, but the ad was badly thought out and good advice was not followed.

It could have taken an extra couple of days to re-design it and put it in the Saturday press to get more effect – people would still have had the weekend to do something about it.

Just wanted to say that in adverts, if you get people hooked about an issue they know is important to them, eg the NHS, and give them enough to catch their attention and get them thinking in the headline and initial sentence of text, they will take the time to read it, so I don’t think the text I gave was really overly long.  Like I said before, ads are a waste of time if you don’t give people enough info to get the whole issue.  I think the info in the ad that was published was a little too sparse on content, but I guess time will tell if I’m right or not, by how many people sign up to the petition.  People have had all day to sign the petition, and only around 100K people have signed so far, and that’s far from the 6 million readership touted.

Exactly, Wyrdtimes, the English NHS is underfunded, whereas elsewhere in the UK, the English taxpayer is paying more than their fair share to support the other regions – elsewhere get free prescriptions, for example.  If devolution, why not full devolution so that England doesn’t lose out, which it currently is.  If Scotland, Wales & NI are fully devolved, they can raise all the taxes they like in their own respective countries.

As an NHS worker I actually attended a “listening exercise”.  It involved us forming groups to answer 3 questions which came directly from the DoH.  All three questions asked us to list positive changes that would come about under the new proposals.  This left no opportunity to mention things we were unhappy or concerned about. WHAT KIND OF LISTENING EXCERCISE IS THAT? 

There is a way to salvage the situation, by trying to generate free publicity for our national campaign.  Newspaper editors like stories being given to them, to fill column inches, because they’re often very busy. 

If someone from 38 degrees head office would take up the challenge, they could get in touch with the editors /editorial teams of all the national newspapers, and tell them we’re running a national campaign to save the NHS, because Lansley is trying to gag the nation and bias the listening exercise – that is the real story here, and what newspapers will go for, and then publicity for the petition jumps on the back of that story.  It will be 100% free, and we can also get across the message about 38 degrees – that we are a non-partisan, grassroots movement tackling the issues important to everyone; website address supplied to the editors will get it published for a campaign angle like this.

Johnny and the staff at 38 degrees shouldn’t count on getting publicity when they hand in the petition next Tuesday.  Handing in a petition to Andrew Lansley is a non-story.

Very good idea – it needs a catchy design

This campaign seems to be saying that the NHS cuts affect the whole of the UK. That is untrue. They affect England. Things are rather “devolved” elsewhere.

I helped fund this advert and I am extremely disappointed.

Johnny Chatterton has failed to listen to all the comments on the design which stated that the impending sale of the NHS to
private companies was nowhere near prominent enough. 
The ad looks
great, but as has been mentioned many times before on this blog, very
few people know who Lansley is.  Style has prevailed over substance and
we have missed a great opportunity.

If 38 degrees really cared
about the NHS they would have included a link to the NHS Future Forum
website. Pointing out that 95% of the British public don’t know how to
access the listening exercise is useless without then directing them to it.

38 degrees might think they can save the NHS alone, but that is pompous and arrogant.
If we are to save the NHS, it will require more than a few newspaper ads and a petition.

This advert smacks of self-publicism, and I will not be donating any more money to 38 degrees.

Whilst you are undoubtedly raising an important issue, this is neither the forum nor, more importantly, the right time for a debate on devolution. Divide and conquer is a classic Tory approach, often employed when they are attempting to railroad ideologically driven, self-serving legislation through parliament. We have to be on our guard against anything that alows them to muddy the waters in relation to an issue of such grave importance and urgency.  

I have to agree, 38 degrees are being a bit naive in thinking that the government are going to pay more attention to a web-based petition than to their own channels, and any future publicity should include info on the NHS Future forum website.  Several of us suggested putting some such info in the ad, but it was ignored.I have suggested elsewhere that the way to salvage this situation is to try and generate free publicity by 38 degrees head office getting in touch with each and every national newspaper’s editorial division and hand them a good story on a plate – editors like getting stories as their teams are often very busy.The story here is that Lansley et al are gagging the nation and biasing the listening exercise, and the petition jumps on the back of that story, and having read your comment, Dr Jill, I think any approach to a newspaper editor should also ask them to publicise the NHs Future website, as that will really make our voices more counted, if the government gets it directly, and not through a secondary agent, like 38 degrees.  38 degrees like to say that they were responsible for getting the government to listen over the forests, but that belies the fact that there were other, and bigger, campaigns involved in that exercise.If 38 degrees really wants to be a big player in getting the government to listen, head office need to sacrifice some of its self-publicity, like you say, and be more than an online petition group.  Online petitions are not the best way to tap into opinions, and are distrusted by those in power, as people can double up their signatures, for example, by giving different names & email addresses.I think the team at the top are also being naive with the idea that they will just get publicity next Tuesday when they hand in the petition to Lansley.  That’s just a non-story and won’t attract attention.  The real story here is Lansley’s underhandedness as attested by nurses on this website being invited to one of the ‘listening events’ only to find they were only being asked to comment on how the changes wanted by the government could improve things.

I agree with Dr Jill Austin below that the whole exercise has been a waste of time – too hurried, and good advice ignored.  I won’t be giving any more money, either, unless firstly 38 degrees commits to a more democratic process itself, and secondly gives account as to where the money has gone on this campaign – I got 4 out of the 5 papers to have a look, and can’t believe we’ve spent even half of the money – most of the adverts were on the left hand page, which is always cheaper than on the right hand page, because people give the left hand page less of their attention, and some of the ads were less than a whole page. There must be enough of the money left to run another, better campaign in the next few days.

Do you mean ‘The TORYgraph’ ? If so, then you really should add it to your list along with the Mail and the Express ! 

This particular thread is about an advertisement where the English NHS is being portrayed as the mythical UK NHS. So my comment would appear to be in the right place.

You will find that it was Labour that botched devolution so that while the Scots, Welsh and the Northern Irish all had a say on establishing governments to work in their interests the English were denied any say at all. the Tories of course are no better on giving the English a voice despite them being brought into coalition by English voters desperate to get rid of Labour.

What muddies the waters is suggesting the whole NHS faces ConDem “reforms” I cannot think why 38 Degrees would deliberately do such a thing.

38 Degrees is like every other organisation it seems. Incapable of giving the English a voice on the English Health Service. Incapable of differentiating an English issue from a UK wide issue. The same old disingenuous nonsense designed to silence the English

WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED NO MATTER HOW LONG YOU IGNORE US.

“Oh Richard”,,,,,,,you do sound like Mr Cameron &  Company (brain-less)

I have no idea why you put an ad in the Mail and Express…

The Scottish government is given its block of money. It chooses to spend part of that on the health service there, including free prescriptions. The Westminster government decides how to spend its money in England. It chooses not to spend on health service areas like free prescriptions. A choice that each government has made, with different outcomes. You can’t blame the Scots because their government spends on this whilst Westminster doesn’t. And don’t mention Scottish oil………. . Perhaps not the place to start a debate on devolution but I couldn’t let this go. I do agree with you however, that the advert lacked clarity for most people. Many won’t have even heard of Lansley’s name or know much, if anything, about the ‘listening exercise’. The ad needed to provide more info, perhaps with a real example like the NHS worker above (if they gave their permission and remained anonymous if necessary). (Apologies, I have to post this as Guest as I can’t remember my login details! For conversation purposes, I’m Clintop!)

mmm….think 38 degrees is falling into the trap of misinformation.  The government has been having loads of small meetings with key stakeholders and has agreed key changes based on the input of groups who know the issues from the inside out. The public at large have less information and – quite probably – are swayed by emotion.  There is no national health service in reality.  Someone in Dept of Heath has the title of director but services are already commissioned locally. The changes may not be brilliant but whipping up an emotional response shouldn’t be what 38D is about.  The response should be more intelligent and mesaured.

How utterly appalling that everyone’s suggestions and comments over teh last few days have been completely ignored by Jonny Chatterton & 38 degrees.  A wasted opportunity, shameless self publication at the expense of the real issue and just a little hypocritical to condem the government for not listening when you have done exactly the same.

It’s now 24 hours since the ads were released in the press, and a little over 100,000 people have signed the petition since then.  This is not a result.  These will all be Guardian readers, no doubt, since they seem to be the most clued up without a badly-run ad campaign that covered over the real story.  Johnny and the gang need to get moving now to salvage the situation, and make a strike for free publicity, coupled with a renewed, redisigned ad campaign if there’s any money left, but will they listen?  They need to promote the NHS future forum website if self-aggrandisement is not their only goal.

Didn’t you read the post of Caroline Locking, 5 posts below this?  And Dr Jill Austin just below?

Don’t you know the government is all about whitewash, Inside Track?  38 degrees ran a campaign to Save Our Forests, and then claimed the government ‘backed down’ because the government got a little embarrassed, however, in reality the government’s idea of a u-turn has been merely to postpone the process, and now our forests will be sold off over the next 4 years.  There’s little point anyone claiming success into the bargain when this has happened.

Because they are the very people (readers) we need to be targeting and persuading. I thought it was a good move.

There are a few cross-border provisions that will be affected by the changes to the NHS in England, like specialist centres in the North of England that treat patients from Scotland, but mostly the changes only affect England.

I think some of you are being too critical. 38 Degrees cannot satisfy everyone. What matters is that they ultimately have the same objective as we do. They delivered advertisements into the papers that WILL have raised public awareness. 38 Degrees have good experience in achieving some good results – just look at the Forest campaign. Although Dr Jill Austin may have some good points, she is not running the campaign, leave it to those who are experienced. To say you will not donate again is childish. As I have said before, they cannot satisfy everybody, and it is the END result they should be judged upon, not how they get there. If you do not donate in the future, you are simply going to empower the opposition.

These people are not at all experienced with running an ad campaign, and you clearly haven’t read my reply to Inside track below.

Just wanted to add there is a lack of objective reality at 38 degrees.  A couple of weeks ago I got an email link from them that was touted as showing a video of Nick Clegg being utterly amazed at the amount of signatures gathered on the 38 degrees petition when he recived it.  I saw nothing of the sort.  Nick Clegg looked decidedly non-plussed and didn’t even say anything of any great import to suggest otherwise.

38 degrees seem to only like bigging themselves up for no significant results, as per my recent comments and the comments of others.

As others have said, an opportunity has been wasted.  I wonder whether those – unelected and unlistening - at the top of 38 degrees will start to move to some effect and get the real story in the papers about how Lansley is gagging us all to bias the listening exercise, and publicise the NHS future forum website. 

It’s no good waiting to see how effective the bungled campaign will be – by then it will be too late, and it’s already clear that it’s not been effective by the lack of significant signing up to the petition.   The first 24-hours is up, and that’s the critical window for telling how successful it’s been.  There’s no point waiting for the campaign to ‘go viral’, people like me have already spread the word on the internet to minimal effect. The money spent on advertising so far has been wasted, and all the advice needed was given beforehand, just not heeded, to the disappointment of many.

What an absolute WASTE! I will not be helping to pay for any more 38 Degrees ads! YOU AINT LISTENING!
 

http://blog.38degrees.org.uk/2011/05/16/our-save-the-nhs-petition-hand-in-what-clegg-said/

If you want to judge for yourself how lacking in objectivity 38 degrees are, check out the video I just mentioned of Nick Clegg receiving the petition on the above link.  All he did was look at it, and said, Well

Like I was trying to say, all he said was, ‘Right, we’ll take the box,’ and he passed it to someone else.  Not the being ‘visibly taken aback’ 38 degrees said.

And parts of this website has been badly designed.  If you navigate away from a page you are trying to comment on, to look something up, when you go back, you can’t carry on typing in the comments box. Plus you can’t always get it to register that you’ve ‘liked’ someone else’s comment.  And I often get a message on my computer saying that a script is running on the page that is making my computer run slowly.

Well here we go already…as a certain Mrs Thatcher put it “there are always the moaning minnies around”…just a reminder never to go into battle with these negative people!

Well done 38 Degrees for acting as a vanguard for us all…yes the campaign is working, people have told me that others have commented already about adverts and want to know what to do to sign the petition…mainly because this is all a challenge for them. The main thing is that the plight of the NHS is being brought to them and they are definitely concerned. That concern has to be brought to the attention of the board under Earl Howe and the government – we can still succeed!

Well done 38 Degrees – on all counts, and nearly 410000 signed the petition to Save Our NHS so far – absolutely marvellous! Now we have to see the effect from newspaper readers – best of luck!

Yes Cookie, by now I think we have all gathered your opinions on the matter. Personally I think that, yes they should have listened more to suggestions and advice given to them and made the poster more obviously about the NHS. However you should not just write 38D off and claim never to donate to them again as they are clearly not all about self-promotion seeing as they are going to all this effort to get the message across, even if you believe it has not been in the best way. 
Yes there haven’t been as many more people supporting the campaign as might be hoped. But in reality, many of those people simply might not be so interested, or politically involved enough. 
At least this might show up and embarrass Andrew Lansley to an extent, if not thoroughly. Those who are strongly politically engaged Will notice the advert and it should embarrass him. But of course, politicians are used to being embarrassed, and I’m not sure how much effect it will really make on changing his plans. Cameron and Lansley are pretty set in their decision. 

In reading through these comments, I’m surprised at this stage that there are such negative attitudes obviously disguised as being constructive…surely there aren’t moles contributing here…I smell a rat, but I never did take too much notice of ‘cookie(s)’!

I think a car window sticker is a good idea to spread the message, save the NHS.

One contributer mentions Mr Clegg’s disinterested statement of “well” when recieving the petition. Does that not fully show all of us, the voting public, just how much contempt this coalition government has for public opinion. Thanks to 38 degree’s this sort of indifferent behaviour was made fully visable   

A brilliant campaign so far. Where can I find the ads? The website announced 25th May, but the twitter feed says ads are in the papers today.  

The point I’m trying to make and I will spell out here, is that the 38 degrees team asked for feedback on the ads as were given on another webpage, and then ignored the advice given. They obviously had an ego-driven motive because all they wanted to know was whether we preferred a picture of Lansley with headphones on, or a picture of him with his fingers in his ears, as per the headline of this page.

They just weren’t interested to know whether the campaign they came up with was going to be any good or not.  Plenty of good suggestions were given as to how to make improvements.  That’s why they don’t deserve to be trusted with people’s money unless they come up with a more democratic process of getting involved, as I said when I said I don’t want to give any more money unless they do that.

whoops.  One day email loops are great for time management. Well done everyone! 

I find it unbelieveably sloppy that the ad says British public when the reforms only apply to England? Will a correction be issued?

95% of the British public? I think the Scottish and Welsh would laugh given that the reforms only apply to the English NHS! Personally I could cry at the incompetence of it all. Why didn’t the ad say English public?

You can say what you like but the ad is incorrect. The reforms have nothing to do with the British people, only the English and the ad should state that fact clearly. As it stands it is misleading.

‘…people might not be so interested, or politically involved enough.’  Or maybe the 95% of people that don’t know how to engage in Shamsley’s listening exercise really just don’t care about the NHS. In which case we should just let the democratic process roll on and watch the NHS slide into oblivion, bad ad campaigns notwithstanding.   OF COURSE THE BRITSH PUBLIC CARES ABOUT THE NHS.  They just won’t have got the message about how bad things are going to be if the Conservatives get their way, and this ad campaign did NOTHING to get the message across. 

Never mind calling it ‘moaning’, it’s been a wake-up call, and Johnny & co have needed to hear it.

This does affect the British public. Although the changes affect the organisation of the NHS in England, the services are still provided to *all* of the UK. Enough people cross the borders for routine treatment on a daily basis and even longer distances for specialist treatment that this is an issue for the whole of the British public.

…over 412000 great reaction to the ads I think! Doing well towards the 500,000 if it keeps going at this rate!

These people went there representing us. I appreciate that a lot…where were you then? Stop being so pedantic, it isn’t helping the cause at all!

Thank you Bjorn. At last someone with knowledge and sense. The British Government is dealing with the amount of monies which was 140 billion and reducing that by 20 billion…for all the UK! How the Scottish and Welsh deal with it is within the funding agreed and allocated.

What you may not realise, Russell, is that 386,000 of those signatures were already there before the ads went in.  The signature-gathering exercise had stalled a couple of weeks before that.  Little movement since this morning when 407,000 signatures were there.

The first twenty-four hours is quite crucial to getting people motivated to do something about the ad they’ve seen.  We won’t get many more signatures off the back of these adverts, because now the ads are out of mind, so is the campaign.

And let’s compare that to the Save our Forests campaign – run by 38 degrees 490,000 signatures were collected, and no national press advertising was involved as far as I’m aware.  So there we have it, from a good ad campaign we could have expected millions of signatures, because people do care enough about the NHS to sign up to a simple petition, but as it is the ad campaign has not done well.

 …Wonder if there’s any news yet on getting the real story in the papers and what to do about it…

So should all British people be consulted on changes to the Welsh and Scottish NHS’s? What about abolishing prescription charges in Wales and Scotland? These changes reduce the amount of money available for Welsh and Scottish hospitals and other facilities which means that more people come across the border to use English NHS facilities. Should English people be consulted on those changes?

hi cookie, thanks for the comments. I’m sorry you felt that we ignored the advice. We did take on board many of the comments but the problem was that simply wasn’t enough time to do everything. I’d be really interested to hear how you think we could do this better in future. That could be on the blog or over e-mail if you prefer. My e-mail is johnny@38degrees.org.uk
I think one thing we can definitely improve on his putting up some trusts earlier and giving lots of other people a chance to come up with other designs. 

Great idea! Does anyone have any ideas for a design? 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/may/26/nhs-reform-bill-sent-back

More here about what Clegg has said about the recommittal of the bill.  This delay creates more time for pressure to be exerted on our MPs, many of whom might not have been fully aware of some of the proposed details and effects.  More time for us to write to them with questions to be answered – let’s make sure they hold ministers to account on our behalf – that’s why they are elected!

Richard- I don’t think it’s childish at all!  It’s my money, hard earned in the NHS.

Why did 38 degrees spend my money on a survey to find out that 95% of the population don’t know how to access the “listening exercise”, then more of my money telling the population there is a listening exercise which they, the targets of the advert, don’t know how to access?

Why not tell the population the NHS Future Forum web address???

At least then the people who will go online to sign a petition might also spend another 10 mins online telling the government that they don’t want the NHS privatised.

38 degrees members need now to take action for themselves – google ‘NHS future forum’, and get a response to the government by the deadline for the NHS listening exercise which is Tuesday.  There were only a few hundred responses to each category last time I looked yesterday, which is pitiable.  We have to face facts that web-based petitions are not all that effective, and not rest on our laurels.  With the Save Our Forests campaign, it was more the fact that people got involved with the listening exercise then and also wrote to MPs, which all makes the government accountable and take a bit of notice.  Web-based petitions do nothing to make the government accountable, and 38 degrees have been remisce in not letting us know the details of the Future forum website themselves.  If 38 degrees really is to be a changing force, it needs to broaden its approach somewhat, and give us more avenues for campaigning, like many of the other campaigning groups did for Save Our Forests.

Firstly, if we’d been let in on the exact time frame of getting the ad in the papers, we could have commented on how the plan might pan out.  Delaying a few more days wouldn’t have hurt the campaign, and would have given more time to change the ad design itself.

I think the thing that’s been illustrated by the way the campaign has had an affect on the petition numbers themselves, is that the effect of an ad like that last not much more than 24 hours.  A better approach would have been to get the ads in the Saturday or Sunday press, when many people have a bit more time to do something about it, and then think about the Metro, which I don’t think has a weekend edition. Friday if you have time to meet a deadline, but Monday would have been fine, because of the 24-hour effect.

Secondly, as Gabriel pointed out below, the AIDA principle is a good place to start when thinking about your ad.

Also, please consider expanding the repertoire of campaign options you give people, because petitions are fine as an indicator of the way SOME people feel over an issue, but they don’t really make politicians accountable in the way that other, more official, avenues of action do.  I’m also being pedantic here by pointing out that petitions can’t really engage the political process as powerfully as other avenues, because you can’t really guage how many people would have signed a petition given the choice. You could say that for each signature 5 or 10 more people would have signed, and so, giving our petition as an example, just over 4 million people’s views can be ‘guaged’ by this method.  That’s not really a majority in this country.  Petitions are limited in effect because some people might not like the wording that someone else has written, and would rather it said something slightly different, to either be more powerful in some way, or because they don’t agree with some particular aspect of what’s written.  Therefore the political listening exercises more scope for a voice,because you can write exactly what you want.

Here’s the Future Forum link
http://healthandcare.dh.gov.uk/listening-exercise-how-to-get-involved/

What rubbish, the ad campaign from my observations got people talking. This exposure is good, I first heard about 38degrees from skynews recently which is probably where many thousands of signatures came from. If nearly 30,000 more came from a result of the newspaper adverts that would mean many more times that amount would have been drawn to the issue.
Keep up the pressure.

Yes – 38 degrees is doing a marvellous job – but I agree, the petition and ads are very important, but personally emailing your MP – again and again if necessary - really does have an effect. This link will take you to the Parliament website from where you can easily find your MP and his/her emailing address: http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/mps/ .  I think it is time that a national demonstration is organised specifically to save the NHS – not confused with the cuts in general or any other issue – one solely dedicated to save the NHS and against the ‘reforms’ and privatisation of the NHS. For those who are not aware of it, you should also check out the now long running Keep Our NHS Public campaign: http://www.keepournhspublic.com/index.php 

The ad looks good but is ineffective.    As ChrisG has said ‘it is not just the sham listening exercise that needs to be tackled’ but the real risks to the NHS’
 
Few people realize that The Health and Social Care Bill removes the legal duty of the secretary of state to PROVIDE the health service in England. It also removes his powers to direct NHS bodies and providers.  I have yet to come across anyone who has been aware of this.  This should have been included in the copy – just this one clause has shocked many of the people I have told into becoming actively involved in opposing the Bill….. so spread the word about this lynch-pin clause.
The Bill removes the existing NHS framework and will in time replace the current system with a framework for a commercial system of health care. The government have no mandate for this, it wasn’t put to the British people at the election, nor does it appear in the Coalition Agreement.
 
Send an email to your MP about this via  http://www.writetothem.com or a short letter to the  House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA, and a short letter to a Peer in the House of Lords, London SW1A OPW, asking them to support the call for a House of Lords Select Committee to scrutinize this bill. You can send 6 emails to Peers at the House of Lords via http://www.theyworkforyou.com/peers.

And spread the word that the Bill removes the legal duty of the secretary of state to PROVIDE healthcare in England!

I see your post mentioned British, Scottish and Welsh. What about the English? How can we “deal with it”?

There are even more people from the EU who are entitled to free treatment if their need for it arose during their visit to the UK.

So maybe it is an issue for the whole of Europe too?

“You can’t blame the Scots because their government spends on this whilst Westminster doesn’t.”

Not all, but you can blame some, like the one (Brown) who represented a Scottish constituency and used executive powers to cut the English NHS by 6.4Bn, whilst leaving the Scottish one untouched.

Calling the English NHS “the” NHS helps obfuscate the fact England gets the short end of the stick

SHOCKING NEWS!! Thank you Rita for bringing this to our attention. The fact that The Health & Social Care bill removes the legal duty of the SoS to PROVIDE the health service in England & removes the power to direct NHS bodies & providers is of such importance that I’m shocked that this isn’t making headline news! 38 Degrees, you should be be bombarding the country with this rather than focussing on the ‘listening exercise’. Just this one clause shows the coalition’s ultimate intentions. If there is enough money in the kitty to run another ad campaign, (& yes I did contribute), then this single piece of information should be enough to make the whole country sit up & cry WTF!!!

38 Degrees Team – please send out a email to everyone with this piece of information & ask if there is a possibility that this could be challenged in the courts or under European law. There must be someone amongst the 407,000 who have signed who has the requisite legal knowledge.

Come on everyone – WE HAVE A VOICE AND WE WILL MAKE THEM HEAR US!
 

Jan, Thank you for your comments.  I too cannot understand why the newspapers haven’t focussed on this. Do read the British Medical Journal’s article:  http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d1695.full   The clauses in the Health and Social Care Bill begger belief.  Look at the Freedom to create surpluses from patientcare budget which then ‘can be distributed to staff and shareholders as part offinancial incentive or bonus schemes.’

Rita Mauri  

Everyone – I urge you to follow the link in Rita’s post. It makes for chilling reading.
38 Degrees team – please email this link to all.

andrew Lansley has no intension of listening, it is just a PR exercise. The only way we can make him listen is for more people to get involved and join their voices to ours to make the noise so loud that he will not be able to ignore it. More voices, more noise. Let’s make him listen.

As an old age pensioner I find the whole idea very frightening. I fear that the whole system will fall apart
and we’ll be paying for everything. Money I haven’t got !! 

[...] Wednesday they managed to get an advert promoting their petition into The Guardian, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Metro and the Daily [...]

It takes a lifetime to build a noble institution such as the NHS by the socially conscientious political movement of one party only to be meddled by the money grabbing Tory to destroy in months…… every person of sense and concern with the future welfare and health of the vulnerable of our society must unite to resist this act of vandalism.

I strongly support your action against changes to the NHS that will take away the full provision of health care to all, except those on high income (100K pa)

I agree with Jan and Rita. We must make more people aware of the implications of the Health and Social Care Bill, i.e. removal of the legal duty of the Government to provide health care. I would also like to know if this could be challenged in the courts.
The other point I’m concerned about is the fact that these changes are already going through – PCTs are being dismantled, consortia are being set up, etc.  If, as I understand it, the Bill has not yet been approved by the House of Lords and therefore has not become law, why is this happening?  Couldn’t there be grounds for a legal challenge?

The last two days if anything should teach us that Private health care has no home in the NHS.  A National nursing home with 30000 residents in funding crisis, it will be the taxpayer picking this up I am in know doubt. A Private residential nursing  home, four staff arrested for abuse  thirteen suspended.  It is always likely to happen when you put profit before care.

Why do we always throw out the baby with the bath water?  I am sure that there are changes needed in the NHS but more consultation is needed WITH PEOPLE WHO ARE PATIENTS – NURSES – DOCTORS. 
Managers seem to have too much power.  Managers should manage and this respect that is the only similarity that the  NHS should have  with business.  Finacial managers should always be striving to “buy best”.  Now buying best is about  making sure that you are paying no more for paper, laundry, phones and so on that is good business.  Managers should not be employed to decide how many nurses are needed on a ward or how many Drs to a department.  Those issues are medical and should be left to the Medical Staff to decide – this information should then be passed to the managers for them to implement.

There are some issues and the NHS is one of them that are just too big to be handed over to politicians to play with. 

With all the technology we have nowadays – e-mails, blogs, twitter etc the public can be consulted BUT  the ideas that they put forward must be examined for answers. 

Hey and why not just have a NHS Lottery with all the profits going into the NHS coffers – I would sign up to that – I am fed up with pouring money into a lottery system that does not benefit the masses.

I totally support the NHS and bravo to 38degrees for the campaign. However,

There should be more WHY to 38 Degrees campaigns. Although it often seems obvious WHY we are campaigning for an issue, a bit more discussion of the pros/cons would be much better. Education is essential to understand an argument enough to campaign on it.

To make these mp’s, who vote for this NHS bill, aware of our feelings we should vote them out when they come up for reelection and tell them the reason why you did not vote for them.