Hello everyone!
We would like to thank everyone who has signed and shared this petition over the last couple of days. The three of us are blown away at how quickly this is getting noticed, so thank you so much for all you have done.
Yesterday was a busy day, with lots of emails being sent off to politicians and journalists across the U.K. to let them know about the petition, as well as social media work. We have a Twitter account you can follow: @keyworkerpetuk and there’s also a Facebook Page - search for Key Worker Petition UK. We are also setting up a campaigning group on Facebook as well, which we would be delighted to welcome anyone to (email us on keyworkerpetitionuk@gmail.com).
To take a quick moment to introduce the current people involved in the campaign - we are Cass, Rachel and Sarah.
Cass is a nurse in Scotland, who was infected in April 2020 as a result of their work. They’ve been unwell ever since, with failed returns to work behind them.
Rachel is a nurse from England, also infected in 2020. She’s had health issues since contracting Covid and has been unable to work for some time.
Sarah is a midwife from Wales, who contracted Covid early on in the pandemic. Unable to work since, their health has also been severely impacted.
All three of us met in another campaigning group and following many chats, realised that one of the biggest issues was the lack of settlement for NHS healthcare workers who had caught Covid 19, most probably either at work or as a result of work. All active on social media, we then realised that this issue went far beyond the NHS: That there were teachers, fire service, police, council workers, rail and bus workers, civil servants and so many more key workers all affected by this issue. It’s only been made worse by the ending of Covid Special Leave Pay and Conditions.
We kept reading the stories on social media, in our groups; real stories from real people who are losing their jobs, have lost their jobs, lost their homes now struggling for an income, no idea how they’ll keep up with their pre-Covid financial obligations and manage the cost of living crisis on now limited incomes. We keep seeing a distinct lack of mention of anything being put in place formally - similar to the Armed Forced Compensation Scheme - as called for by the APPG on Coronavirus, so we thought we would bring this issue up.
The government think that their “generous package of benefits” is enough to live on. We have had political leaders insist that we, the “economically inactive” just need “supported” to return to work - when that’s not the reality for many of us. Most of us who have applied for said benefits have been turned down in some cases, needing to appeal. Some who have tried to return to work have faced barriers and lack of reasonable adjustments, meaning those returns failed. Remember that so far, many of those who have applied for Ill health retirement have not been awarded it.
We decided to use Change to gauge public opinion, but we are waiting on parliamentary and Senedd petitions to go live - if we get enough signatures on those it will force a debate on this issue at legislative levels across the U.K. The reason we started them at Westminster, Holyrood and the Senedd is because we don’t know if a compensation scheme would be a reserved (Westminster) or devolved issue. (Also - we are not excluding Northern Ireland: We just need someone who would be willing to get the ball rolling on the Stormont Assembly petition’s website and that needs someone who lives in Northern Ireland to do, so if anyone can help, please email!). As and when those petition links go live, we will post them across social media and here.
In the meantime, thank you so much for your support. We are in the process of putting together activities for our supporters to do to raise awareness of the campaign and these will be coming soon!
Please continue to share the petition - every signature helps. Every share raises awareness of these issues.
We did our jobs to help the U.K. stay safe and running. You clapped us. Please support us as we face an uncertain future.