Almost everyone reading this will know someone who has benefitted from the NHS. In fact, a vast majority were probably born in an NHS hospital.

The NHS is what makes Britain, Great Britain. It is a fundamental right to health regardless of your income or status. We must never lose sight of how vital the NHS has been in creating the civil society we have all become accustom to. Some of us take the NHS for granted and forget that in many countries, including some of the richest in the world, people do not enjoy the right to access healthcare as we do.

But, the NHS is under threat. It has been viewed by many big corporations as profitable and this Conservative government, willingly supported by their Lib Dem friends, are removing the protections in place to stop the NHS becoming a business to generate personal wealth for the few and staying as a service to generate personal health for the many.

The NHS is free at the point of use, but be under no illusion it is free completely. We, as taxpayers pay for it via our National Insurance and other taxes. It is our service and is not a gift from one elite Tory to another.

Profit should not and cannot be made for private gain from our financial income, if surplus money is available then it must be reinvested to develop more provision, cut waiting times & keep ambulance stations open - not to pay millions to Directors and shareholders.

Since August 16, 2014, people have marched from Jarrow in Tyne and Wear and will be arriving in London on Saturday, September 6. There will be thousands of people starting the last leg of the march from outside Edmonton Green walking through Haringey to Clissold Park in Hackney before making their way to the rally in Trafalgar Square. I hope you can join them to show this government our NHS is not for sale and we will fight to save it.

More information about the march can be found on the following website www.999callfornhs.org.uk

Preston Tabois

Chairman of White Hart Lane Branch Labour Party