Rebecca Johnson, Green candidate for H&K will pledge to protect the NHS from privatisation, funding cuts and TTIP this afternoon

A cause the Greens support

38 Degrees members in Hampstead and Kilburn are to present a petition this afternoon outside Waitrose, close to Finchley Road station, asking candidates for the constituency to protect the NHS if elected.  Rebecca Johnson, Green Party candidate in H&K will be there.

The event starts at 3.30pm and is expected to last about 30 minutes.

This is the text of the petition:

Our NHS is precious. Please do everything you can to protect it, including:

* Stopping privatisation
* Making sure it has the funding it needs to provide high quality healthcare to everyone
* Protecting it from US health corporations by keeping the NHS out of TTIP

Why is this important?

Our NHS is precious. We all rely on it to care for us and our loved ones. We want to protect it for the future, and we don't want to see it run down or sold off.

Over the past few years, NHS funding has been squeezed so much that services are suffering. This winter, hospitals up and down the country have declared "major incidents" because they're struggling to cope. And now most hospitals are warning that their budget for next year has " reached the point where patient care is at risk."

Meanwhile, the government is letting profit-hungry companies take over more and more NHS services. At at a time of squeezed budgets, this is the last thing the NHS needs. We want an NHS where patient safety is put first, and where the NHS is run for the public good.

TTIP, the planned trade deal between the EU and the USA, could threaten the NHS further. If TTIP opens our NHS to American private healthcare companies, we could see even more privatisation and a slide into more US-style healthcare. We want the NHS excluded from TTIP.