Political letter from my gp telling who to vote for

I am also a teacher. Like you, I have my students' best interests at heart. It's fine to be political - e.g.strike, go on demos, be active politically in your life outside of school. Not fine to impose your political views on the school community.

Rosina Allin-Khan does shifts in her local A&E. How do you think she's successfully stood for election in the past without getting into trouble if what you say is true? It would be impossible for her to campaign if she excluded everyone she'd ever treated - and she'd have to keep a personal note of who they were in order to do so which probably would be an actual GDPR violation.

Our local Tories have sent letters out ‘from’ community figures instructing us to vote. One from the neighbourhood busy body. They are definitely actually sent out from the party office, I saw it hand delivered and asked

Of course schools and Drs want you to vote Labour.
Our education & health care systems are completely and utterly on their knees!

Our kids are sat all day pong in underfunded, uninspiring education settings with teachers leaving in droves.

Our sick elderly parents are in hospitals with less staff than are able to cope with feeding them, moving them to prevent bed sores, washing them, helping them fucking go to the toilet.

Never mind the carers, public transport, the police or the environment emergency!

What more do you need to know FGS. Just vote them out! 🙏

You seem to believe it’s only possible to stand in a constituency you work in. Why?

I'm from Ireland. You have to live in the constituency you're running in. I didn't realise you don't in the UK.

That is correct, nobody from my profession could ever send a political flyer to a patient. Simple, you never send them in the constituency you work in. By using your position in a caring profession to influence, this is an abuse of power.

You seem to believe it’s only possible to stand in a constituency you work in. Why?

Why? They have your children's best interests at heart. As a teacher, I have to be impartial when I'm teaching the children but that doesn't mean I am not allowed to have a political opinion or voice it elsewhere. Government policy has a direct impact on the job I do. If government policy is making my job impossible and having a negative impact on the children in my care, why shouldn't I advise parents to think about this when they vote. It is up to them to decide who they vote for based on the information they have.

If they are a party member and have put their name to a letter sent by a political association from an electoral register list - fine.

If they are a local GP who has written to practice patients on practice notepaper to encourage them to vote according to the author's beliefs not fine. If in addition such a communication has been funded by practice resources from the NHS funds - absolutely not fine.

The argument in relation to professional boundaries is important too in each scenario and bears scrutiny.

It is really difficult to comment without the full facts.

Already did!

We all need to do our bit against the bot farms.

This is completely unacceptable.

This exactly. It really is worrying that so many people on this thread have clearly not got a clue how things work.

Is it a full moon tonight? It must be.

They may as well, it's going to be the only way I see a GP anytime soon.
I'd prefer they just did it already. Then at least I can choose one near me at a price I'm willing to pay. Instead of having to travel miles and pay a hundred quid.

If that were true, nobody from your profession could ever run for office. They could never advertise that they were standing, never send a leaflet out in case it went to a client, never put a poster up in case a customer recognised them and realised they were standing for a particular political party....

Can't edit my earlier pose, but the relevant section is this:

1. Staff activism: NHS employees are free to undertake political activism in a personal capacity but should not involve their organisation or create the impression of their organisation’s involvement.

So I guess it depends on whether they are acting on their own behalf or whether they are appearing to speak for the organisation.

Is there a party imprint on the bottom somewhere in very tiny print? It may be that this has been sent by the political party he's supporting

Then report it.

Even if the letter was sent purely from the electoral role in a purely political capacity
Even if your GP is completely right that we have to get the Tories out
This is an abuse of power as he is your GP.
My professional body would take a very dim view of this.

It depends on where it comes from.

If I run a business and collect your data, I can only use it for the purposes you agree to. I can't use that data for any other purpose that is not clear from the privacy notice.

If I run a business, but collect your data from the electoral register and use that data, then that's ok. Because I haven't used the data that I collected from you that is on my database.

If I do some cross correlation with my data and the data on the register, try to fill in missing fields and then use other available data to get a marketing list, then you are into a whole new territory of processing.

They're all getting desperate. My DH and DD had a joint letter today from a hospital consultant urging them to vote Tory 😂
I didn't think for one moment that they had got our address from their hospital files! 🤷🏻‍♀️

Apologies if this has already been posted - I've not read the whole thread - but assuming this is an NHS GP, here's the link to their guidance: https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/pre-election-guidance-for-nhs-organisations-general-election-2024/

I agree 😄

Are they registered as a third party campaigner and are they making a declaration of expenses to the Electoral Commission?

I’m not a GP but hold a similar clinical position and we are encouraged to be neutral in our professional dealings with clients. Knowing which political party I support might affect how you engage with me. So, if you were a refugee and I spoke openly of my support for Reform, would you engage with me in the same way? If you are passionately anti-Tory and I’m discussing what an amazing bloke Rees-Mogg is, would it alter our professional relationship? What if I’m dealing with a mentally ill person with a political grudge?
Also, why would I want to discuss my politics with people coming to me for treatment?
There’s nothing to say it can’t be done, but it is highly discouraged in my profession.

But you wouldn't need to, as there's almost certainly enough information on the letter to tell you where the address came from. Probably in a footer stating it's a political communication on behalf of X Party, promoted by Y agent.

But the OP has muted the thread and toddled off for Horlicks in bed, so we'll never know.