Lib Dem NHS whistleblower site launched

The Liberal Democrats have launched a new campaigning website www.libdemnhswatch.com designed to enable members of the public and NHS staff to highlight problems in the frontline health service.

The new website, designed to hear feedback and concerns from thousands of patients and medical professionals, is designed to connect the Lib Dems to the front line of the health service.

Launching the NHS ‘whistleblower’ site, Liberal Democrat health spokesman, Steve Webb, said: "This website will help improve the NHS. It is a website for patients who have difficulty accessing treatment and for professionals prevented from providing the services the community needs."

Speaking to E-Health Insider, Webb said the site could help pick up problems early: "I find e-mail is an early warning system. If we can pick up problems early we can raise them with the government."

He described the new website as "using technology to find a human face to serve our campaigning in health."

Webb told EHI that the NHS IT modernisation programme was one of the top three areas the Lib Dems will be campaigning on in health, together with the wider NHS reform agenda and "a very specific campaign in dentistry".

Webb said people can choose to remain anonymous when they make contact through the site. "People don’t have to give their full details in the form, though obviously we’d prefer it if they did."

He added: "Currently, there are few outlets for people to tell their stories or expose issues that point to larger problems. The Government would rather that these stories do not see the light of day. We disagree.

"libdemnhswatch.com will allow us to identify which NHS reforms are working, which targets distort clinical priorities and which funding and IT issues those inside the ‘Westminster bubble’ really need to know about."