For the last few weeks, my social media has been full of messages about people raising money for the NHS. “I was going to run the London Marathon but now it’s cancelled I’m running a marathon in my garden to raise money for the NHS.”
Of course, people are not actually raising money for the NHS but for NHS charities, which I am sure are doing brilliant work, including much needed support for the NHS staff treating covid patients. But the NHS is not a charity. We pay for it through our taxes and it has had the unprecedented commitment from the government that it will get whatever it needs to cope with the Covid-19 outbreak. The ongoing problems with PPE and testing capacity are not a result of lack of money.
Today the Culture Secretary said that charities have been at the forefront of the fight against coronavirus. He’s right, but unfortunately government support for the sector has not reflected this importance.
It’s fantastic to see the amount of creative fundraising happening in response to the Covid-19 epidemic. But spare a thought for the charity you were going to run the marathon for. If all people’s fundraising efforts in the next few months go to NHS charities, others will be starved of the cash they need for vital work.
My own charity, the Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance (ARMA) is an umbrella body of patient and professional organisations working in musculoskeletal health (conditions like arthritis and back pain). When the NHS scaled back all but the most urgent treatment, ARMA patient charities stepped in to fill the gap. Many rheumatology departments closed altogether, leaving people who are taking immunosuppressant medication trying to understand what they should do. Charities experienced a tsunami of calls, anything up to ten times their usual volume.
Initially people were trying to understand risk levels. Should I be shielding? Should I stop taking my medication? Does my condition put me at additional risk? Shielding requires you to stay two metres away from every member of your household. What do you do if you have a child and one of you needs to shield? What about your job? Thanks to modern medicine, conditions like rheumatoid arthritis can be well managed, so there are many in the group asked to shield who are young, healthy and in full time employment.
There are lots of concerns about treatment. Most people understand that their operation had to be cancelled. Now they are asking when it might be safe to have the surgery, and how to manage the pain while they wait. People whose existing condition has flared or who have new symptoms find they can’t get even an online appointment.
All of this pain, distress and confusion is being supported by a range of specialist patient charities, some very small. Many have cancelled fundraising events. All have had to develop new, innovative ways to support people. In theory they can access the government’s furlough scheme. But unlike a business, their funding has gone down while their workload has gone up. Everyone is balancing the immediate need with long term sustainability. Everyone is waiting to see if they will get any of the already inadequate government funding which was supposed to come quickly but somehow has not.
So, when you are running round your garden “for the NHS”, remember that the NHS could not cope without the support of health charities. And if you aren’t sure which charity to choose, these are the ARMA patient member organisations who have been doing such great work to support hundreds of thousands of people through the current crisis:
Arthritis Action
Ehlers Danlos Support UK
Fibromyalgia Action UK
Hypermobility Syndromes Association
National Axial Spondyloarthritis Society
National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society
Polymyalgia Rheumatica and Giant Cell Arteritis UK
Scleroderma and Raynaud’s UK
UK Gout Society
Versus Arthritis
