As someone who has been fairly outspoken on the political reform side AND co-founded a charity to help healthcare workers ( @thehwf) (AND an EveryDoctor member) - I wonder if I can change your mind on this?

/thread https://twitter.com/JujuliaGrace/status/1386217474589446144

1/ Firstly, it's important to differentiate what you mean when you say "NHS Charities" - which is a very specific fundraising organisation with a specific model, and other charities raising money for healthcare workers.

2/ @NHSCharities is the campaigning umbrella for smaller charities, mostly focussed on single hospitals, that raise money for patient services, staff and other hospital activity. Grants are given from the main pot for various projects to the hospital.

3/ Other charities, like @theHWF directly support individuals.

The @theHWF for example delivers directly to healthcare workers, so far:
- 500,000+ items of scrubs, visors, skin care products, and other PPE
- 100s hours of professional counselling
- >£100,000 in financial grants

4/ We also tackle specific unmet needs in real-time:
- sustainable PPE
- re-useable respirators (with @Oxford_Inspired )
- Safe Surgery laparoscopic surgery machines
- the bereaved families of the 1000+ healthcare workers that died due to COVID this year

5/ The argument we "shouldn't exist", and time and energy should be diverted to reform instead is flawed.

To use an analogy, you could argue most coronary heart disease is preventable with good public health, but we wouldn't stop funding A&E or heart attack services?

6/ I agree wholeheartedly that these needs shouldn't exist, but they do. And political reform, like public health measures, takes years or more to start meeting those needs.

What do NHS staff do in the meantime? It isn't an either/or situation, and we shouldn't frame it thus.

7/ Lastly, by the same logic, we could argue that the health service should be well-funded and supported, and the need for a political organisation like @EveryDoctorUK shouldn't exist.

But it isn't, and the work that Every Doctor does is very much needed - as are charities.

8/ And it isn't 'virtue-signalling' to support these charities - so many people simply want to help, and make an immediate direct impact.

That might be short-termist, but how much political weight does the average Joe have? Whereas a £350 bake-sale makes a tangible difference.

9/ Lastly, we all know we can never meet the need out there - 3m health and social care workers NEED widespread political reform to make every life better in the long-run.

What we CAN do is demonstrate what works on a small-scale and campaign to make it a govt policy.

10/ So respectfully I would ask you to reconsider how you frame this argument, and keep up the good work! /end