The UK Government has decided to transform the National Health Services (NHS) from a comprehensive, equitable provider of healthcare into a kind of tax-funded insurer operating in a market system. NHS bodies are being told they have to be lean, mean commercial operators. The result is a deficit crisis resulting in job losses and the closure of wards, departments and even entire hospitals. Accompanying this is a process of ‘patchwork privatisation’ as the NHS is parcelled up into bite-sized pieces and handed over to private control bit-by-bit. Many Accident and Emergency departments and maternity units are under threat, and community hospitals are closing across the land. This has led to large-scale local campaigns, with several thousands demonstrating and tens of thousands more signing petitions. These campaigns have attracted some unlikely support, with several Conservative and Labour MPs joining the protests. Eleven government ministers have even joined local campaigns against changes that result of their own policies. This upsurge of opposition has achieved some notable victories. Extensive cuts in Gloucestershire were halted after 3,000 marched through Stroud and 5,000 rallied in the Forest of Dean. Some local councils have been pressured into defending health services – Surrey county council ordered the brakes to be put on devastating cuts at the Epsom and St Hillier hospital. It demanded that the local population must be consulted on such a dramatic move. Consultation was also secured on plans to cut district nurses and school nurses in north London, after sustained pressure from Waltham Forest Keep Our NHS Public. In Greater Manchester a former nurse, Pat Morris, risked all her savings in taking legal action to over the closure of two wards. But these kinds of victories are not enough. Local opposition may stop some cuts, but the attack on the NHS is dictated by central government policy. The task remains to harness all this local energy into a national political movement. Keep Our NHS Public, a national campaign with over 30 groups across the country, is attempting to do this by putting the focus on the privatisation agenda and linking it to cuts and deficits. The major health service unions are promoting a similar message and organising action in defence of the NHS. For more details see www.keepournhspublic.com