UPDATE 11/12/2014 - We won! Lockheed Martin didn’t like the taste of our people-powered medicine. The American arms company announced this week that they won’t be bidding to run chunks of the NHS in England after all!
We should feel proud of ourselves for helping to see this off this dangerous NHS busting bid.
Original Email:
American arms company, Lockheed Martin, is targeting huge chunks of our NHS! If successful, the world's biggest weapons manufacturer could be in your GP's office, handling your records and scheduling your appointments.
Lockheed Martin isn’t content with raking in billions from selling weapons to countries right around the world -- now it wants a slice of our National Health Service.
Right now, it’s sniffing around a huge £1 billion contract to supply services to our GPs and family doctors. But the NHS hasn’t decided yet who will make it through the bidding process, so we’ve still got a chance to stop this arms company from profiting from the healthcare our families receive. But we don’t have long to make our voices heard.
Tell the government & NHS England to stop Lockheed Martin from bidding on the NHS contract. Gun-runners don't belong in the NHS!
The NHS has been delivering these services to GPs for decades, but the NHS has been banned from meetings about its own future and isn't even allowed to bid. The contract is also rumoured to be worth way more than the current cost of running these NHS services.
If this were really about saving the government money, bidding would be open to organisations that have already proven they can do the job. What's really happening is another step in selling off the NHS to the highest bidder.
The SumOfUs community has already fought back against the corporate vultures trying to put their profits before the needs of patients. Together, over 250,000 of us demanded that NHS England stop the sale of our medical records.
We’ve proven that we can challenge the corporate takeover of our NHS and now we need to step up and do so again.
Sign the petition to stop the government and NHS England from giving £1 billion to Lockheed Martin and giving arms dealers control of the NHS.
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More information:
International arms firm Lockheed Martin in the frame for £1bn NHS contract The Independent, 21 November 2014
World's biggest arms firm targets £1billion NHS contract, Mirror, 19 November 2014