Clive Peedell and David Wilson deliver mock postcard from NHS founder Nye Bevan to prime minister at end of six-day run
The NHS consultants ran six marathons in six days taking them from a statue of NHS founder Nye Bevan (pictured) in Cardiff to Whitehall to urge the government to drop the health bill. Photograph: PA/Empics Sports Photo Agency
"The NHS will last as long as there are folks left with faith to fight for it," Nye Bevan said of the organisation he founded in 1948.
Clive Peedell and David Wilson, both cancer specialists at James Cook University hospital, in Middlesbrough, finished the equivalent of six back-to-back marathons in as many days to protest against the government's health and social care bill.
"It was a symbolic message to David Cameron and Andrew Lansley, that Nye Bevan would not have approved of what they are trying to do the NHS. He would have been appalled by it," Peedell said at the end of the final run.
Along the route Peedell delivered a similar postcard to Cameron's constituency office in Witney, Oxfordshire.
Peedell and Wilson completed the run wearing T-shirts bearing Bevan's quote. They were greeted by up to 300 campaigners outside the Department of Health headquarters.
"When we saw all the people at Richmond House it was a real lift. It was a fantastic feeling to finish," Peedell said.
"We did it to highlight opposition to the health and social care bill, which would increasingly privatise the NHS and undermine its founding principles which Nye Bevan outlined."
In a blogpost en route, Peedell wrote: "Cameron and Lansley cannot be trusted on the NHS. Their ideology is neoliberal, with an uncritical faith in markets and the drive for a minimal welfare safety net."
Wilson, who is an experienced runner, said: "Our greatest and most popular national institution is being stolen away from under our noses."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/15/nhs-consultants-run-protest-heath-bill
