Hello!
And thanks for visiting our visualisation website.
We’re a group that likes democracy, a lot. We also have a strong passion for the NHS. We believe that a cornerstone of any democratic decision making process must be an honest assessment of people’s views . So, we decided to conduct our own listening exercise, and just in case the governments ears aren’t working, we made it visual!
-Sunil, Guppi, Jonny, Robert, Cassie and Martin
FAQs
NHS reforms? What NHS reforms?
The Conservative, Liberal Democrat coalition government in the UK is currently in the process of putting a bill through parliament to reform the National Health Service. Arguably, the most significant change proposed by the bill is to dissolve the current bodies that commission healthcare (Primary Care Trusts) and hand these powers over to GP consortia. The bill will also see the provision of healthcare opened up to “any willing provider”. This will mean the new consortia will be obliged to tender out healthcare contracts to the NHS, private healthcare companies, charities and others, including, presumably, my mate Dave who can sort you our with a liver transplant down the back of Mare street no problem.
Why only for/against?
Good question – this is something we debated and came up with the following, by no means complete, thoughts:
- It’s difficult to devise a scale that expresses the diverse set of opinions out there in a way that is meaningful.
- Ultimately our MPs have to make yay or nay decision when they cast their votes on our behalf.
So, when placing a bubble we infer the following about that person or group:
On balance, I am for/against the NHS reforms as they currently stand.
How do you decide who is for and who is against?
Many bubbles are there there as a result of people filling out our form, here. However, there are a bunch of bubbles that were added on the behalf of others (e.g. MPs, Unions, etc.). This begs the question of how to decide whether they are for or against the reforms. This is another tricky issue and we don’t feel there is any best answer. So here’s how we do it:
Individuals (MPs, peers, academics etc.)
To gauge an individuals position we try to find quotes to support a particular view and link to this when their bubble is clicked.
Representative group (unions, charities, etc.)
Here we take two possible routes. If the group has taken an official stance, e.g. as a result of a vote or a members’ meeting, then we deem the entire group to be generally supportive of that stance.
If, however, the body has only polled its members to gauge opinion then we give that group two bubbles. The outcome of the poll is assumed to be representative and is used to determine the size of the bubbles proportionally. For example, if opinion is split 10% for and 90% against, then the for bubble would be sized at 10% of the membership and the against would be sized at 90%.