CAMPAIGNERS in Swindon called on the town’s next MP to acknowledge their petition to save the NHS and understand their fight to keep it publicly-funded.

The 38 Degrees organisation is one of the UK’s biggest campaigning communities, with more than 2.5 million members, and its latest petition has been focused on the health service.

The petition calls on the next government to stop privatisation of the NHS, ensuring funding enables high-quality healthcare for all and to protect it from US health corporations.

The Swindon branch, led by organiser Ben Bell, held its second day of action in the town centre on Saturday, adding signatures to its own contribution to the national petition which has gone beyond 600,000.

Ben invited all the parliamentary candidates for South Swindon to the presentation of a certificate which confirms their acknowledgement of the petition when it is formally submitted to Downing Street.

Labour’s Anne Snelgrove and Green Party member Poppy Hebdon-Leeder, deputising for Talis Kimberley-Fairbourn, were the only candidates to attend the event.

Ben said: “This is for anyone who does get into government. Every group across the country today, in every town and city, they are doing this. We want them to recognise that people know it’s being privatised and don’t want it to go that way.

“We don’t want to end up paying for a US-style healthcare system.”

Previously, 38 Degrees in Swindon has been involved in days of action protesting against the future of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

This latest NHS petition has already collected in excess of 2,000 signatures.