date: 15 October 2007
embargo: For immediate release
Celebrating the NHS on 3 November
Thousands of NHS supporters and staff including nurses, doctors, hospital cleaners, radiographers, midwives and physiotherapists from trusts all across the UK will be coming to London at the beginning of next month for a celebration of the NHS.
The 'I love the NHS' event is being organised by the 15 unions and organisations involved in the NHS Together campaign. On Saturday 3 November, NHS employees will gather on the Embankment from 11am, and set off at noon for a march to Trafalgar Square.
The 3 November event is being billed as a celebration of the core values of the health service and founding principles of the NHS. As the NHS heads towards its 60th year next year, the founding principles remain as important today as they were in 1948. To keep true to its name, the message to the Government is to keep competition, markets and profits out of the NHS.
En route to the Square, the NHS staff, supporters and their families will be accompanied by bands and colourful street performers. Once at the rally - which ends at 4.30pm - they will hear from a variety of speakers and entertainers.
NHS Together is also currently compiling filmed clips of celebrity supporters, NHS staff, patients and their families highlighting the good work of the NHS and its staff to be shown in the Square on the day.
NOTES TO EDITORS:
- NHS Together www.nhstogether.org.uk is an alliance of health unions formed to celebrate all that is great about the health service, to defend its core values and to resist the fragmentation of the NHS.
- NHS Together consists of the British Dietetic Association, the British Orthoptic Society, the British Medical Association, the Community and District Nursing Association, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, the GMB, the Hospital Consultants' and Specialists' Association, Managers in Partnership, the Royal College of Midwives, the Royal College of Nursing, the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, the Society of Radiographers, the TUC, Unison and Unite.
Contacts:
Media enquiries:
Liz Chinchen T: 020 7467 1248 M: 07778 158175 E: media@tuc.org.uk
Press release (400 words) issued 15 Oct 2007
