lobbying

Maybe this isn't the best way of putting this, as I am not a politician or the like I can't dress up a failure as something it is not. Since the run up to the last general election I have been lobbying to protect neonatal services, increase funding for research and the support of parents who have lost babies. I have pushed quite hard and been very persistent over the subject to the apparent irritation of some. Firstly I started with the Conservative party then my MP and finally a member of the house of Lords.

I shall start with the House of Lords, I did my research to find out the most appropriate person to write to. I then made sure I addressed him properly, I gave a brief history followed by what I was looking for. There wasn't any emotion or political arguments. It seems I wasn't worthy enough for an actual response from the Lord I wrote to. My letter was forwarded on to someone else and down the chain until they found someone to reply to me. I wasn't even worth a letter, what I got was an attachment on an e mail that I couldn't reply to. Perhaps next time I will use my title and then see if I am more worthy of a reply.

Moving onto my MP, credit where credit is deserved and I have to give her some. Obviously being a Conservative whip she is going to follow policy to the letter. However she was as helpful as she could be, she did her job, replied to my letters, forwarded my letters onto the relevant people and clarified answers. Finally and refreshingly she was and has been straight to the point with her answers. Much I would like to say my work made a tiny difference but it seems not.

I am a frustrated as it seems that governments do not like mass protests, they don't want to get into reasonable debates about things and yet they are supposed to serve us. They have now said that they are using a natural pause in legislation to listen to views about NHS reforms. My question is why couldn't they have listened at the start rather than waiting until now. It did take me some time to find out if the little people like me could make their views known and where I should make them. As an individual you can give your opinion even though on the website it appears that they are only looking for organisations, frontline staff and patient representatives.

I have yet to be convinced that this new process will make a difference or result in any changes to the legislation that is currently in Parliament. The message I got was that the decisions had been made, that very little would change and that they were only interested in views from a limited group of people. You have to bear in mind though that as a service user I am at the very bottom of a long food chain.

Even though my persistence has resulted in complete failure I would encourage others to contact their MP to make their views known. The more people that do contact their MP, the higher the chances that the government might actually listen.