NHS staff are fighting on all fronts to provide care in the toughest conditions ever seen in our NHS.

Out of this huge struggle must come far better support for the NHS and our health staff.

The Lowdown sets out to give NHS supporters the knowledge and analysis to understand what’s happening in the NHS and to help them challenge our politicians to make it better

When the policy is wrong, as a society, we have to change it, and for many years the NHS has been unable to escape crisis and has struggled to keep up with the needs of patients.

As campaigners, we have worked to push for change, but that is very hard to achieve without public knowledge, without that key element, they are unlikely to get involved, to help press for change.

Too often the truth is obscured by misinformation or lies

The issues are complex and need to be explained.

We believe that the public needs access to reliable information, investigations – run on their behalf and analysis that explains the problems and the solutions.

This is why In 2019 we set up The Lowdown to produce evidence-based, campaigning journalism and research for the public and NHS staff.

Run by journalists and researchers to help explain, expose the facts, analyze policy, and connect with campaigns to challenge our politicians.

Working together we want to create the change the NHS needs; by supporting a more truthful and informed public debate, by helping to empower NHS supporters and by challenging our politicians to do better.

It’s a free resource, produced every two weeks it provides NHS supporters with their own source of information and resources that campaigners and activists have needed for some time.

a vital time, the NHS at a crossroads

It is more important than ever as thousands of non-covid patients are suffering the distress of having their treatment delayed.

A decade of underinvestment in staff and equipment, wasteful reorganizations, and the rapid increase in the use of the private sector has already prevented the NHS from adapting to the rising demands of our population

And despite the mighty efforts of staff, they have been let down by the failure of policy leading to countless crises in recent years.

WHO ARE WE?

Paul Evans (NHS Support Federation) and Dr John Lister (London Health Emergency, KONP and HCT), with over 50 years combined experience between them as researchers and campaigners are leading this project to build a news and investigation unit to inform NHS supporters and workers.

We have a small staff team and a growing community of freelance contributors. we are non-profit making, independent and our work is evidence based and freely available.

We are committed to helping to train and support the next generation of health journalists, as they are an essential tool in holding our politicians and health leaders to account and getting to the truth.

WHAT MOTIVATES US?

The NHS has mnay commiedt people working for it but it has hit by wasteful reform and a series of failed policies; leaving it where it is today – understaffed, underfunded and struggling to plan and deliver care in all the ways that our population needs.

Even so, NHS staff still manage to care for millions of patients successfully everyday. So in the NHS we have a brilliant concept, that has worked in practice for over 70 years but which has been regularly under supported and undermined by government policy.

A crucial factor is that the public has been consistently misled about national policy. And locally, decisions about the planning of our services have become more remote from the public.

However, we have seen some powerful interventions by local communities, campaigners and trade unions, often defending services that are under threat. They have proved that when people have the information and get organised they have can engineer impressive change.

These experiences inspired us to develop a resource that can help build a bigger community of NHS supporters who are knowledgeable and prepared to defend the values of the NHS.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Donate to our fund to raise £20,000 to support our journalism and investigations fund over the next year.

What are the threats to the services, both locally and nationally, we want to investigate and write about them.

The reorganisation of the NHS that is alreday taking place, who will be runnning our NHS

What happening to accountability

Raise support for a public rubn NHS

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