Probably the scariest email I’ve ever written...

Hello,

It feels very nerve-wracking to type this email to you. In fact, I’ve just paused to take a deep breath with my fingers hovering above the keyboard, which probably looked slightly dramatic. Luckily there’s no one here to witness this!

OK… here goes…

I think I’ve known for a long time that I’d need to send an email like this one day, but there was always an excuse not to. I’d tell myself that I needed more experience, or a larger audience, or more legitimacy in order to do so. But over the past year or so, I’ve run out of excuses.

I started writing about what politicians are doing to the NHS because they’re destroying it, and millions of people are being profoundly failed. And I knew what to write because I’d worked as a doctor for a decade, and then I’d turned to campaigning, giving up my medical career to fight for NHS patients and staff.

For many writers on Substack, the writing is their main job. But it wasn’t my main job- it was squeezed into the cracks between everything else. Being a Mum, doing my “real” job, supporting my husband, looking after the dogs. I’ve spent a lot of midnights at my desk writing my newsletter, and a lot of very early mornings. It was the only way to fit it in.

Despite this, the newsletter grew. My mailing list now has almost 35,000 brilliant people on it. Many thousands of people open every single email. Politicians and public figures started to sign up. And when I had conversations with journalists and others, they started to ask about my future plans for my writing- which I didn’t expect at all. I thought it was just a quiet little thing in the corner which I wrote when my kids were in bed. I didn’t realise that anyone was paying attention.

And as the newsletter grew, the media has been changing. I’d like to say that things are improving- but I don’t think they are. I think on the whole, the UK media serves up a lot of slop to the public right now. I think the reporting about what’s going on for patients is mostly rubbish. I think there’s far too much clickbait and not enough proper analysis- and I think this is dangerous. It’s dangerous because peoples’ health and livelihoods and lives are being harmed because of what politicians are doing to the NHS. People need the facts- and they’re not getting them.

And so I started soul-searching. What was I going to do about it? Many of you know that I’ve just had a baby- but I’m not daunted by that. I campaigned almost immediately after giving birth to my two other children. In fact, I remember doing an interview for a national TV outlet on a towpath with a friend rocking my baby in his pram just out of shot. On another occasion, I remember writing a press release in the 20 minutes when they were both having a nap. Focusing on this project with a new baby in tow might make things a bit more pressured- but I don’t mind a bit of pressure.

And so I’ve been taking stock of what I have to offer in the fight to get decent information to the public- because this fight is absolutely crucial. I have about 550,000 followers across my social media accounts now, and that number is growing all the time. I have experience doing hundreds of media interviews. I’ve written over 300 pieces. I have the ability to work really (excuse my language) bloody hard. And… I have my brilliant readers - you.

I believe that information is incredibly powerful - if a huge number of people understand what politicians are doing to the NHS, those people will be better equipped to hold politicians to account. And so I’ve decided to focus on this newsletter as my “main gig” from now on. It’s become a bestseller through just having a bit of my focus. If I concentrate, there’s no reason why I can’t grow it 10 times or even 100 times bigger. And if 3.5 million people heard what was going on, then that’s 3.5 million people to push back against bad political decisions.

My work starts today- I have lots to catch up on before I can start publishing new pieces, and lots to plan too. I’ll need an excellent strategy to reach so many new people. But I’m telling you first- and I was wondering if I could possibly ask you for help today?

This project has only ever been possible because of the support of my readers (thank you so much, from the bottom of my heart). And I’m going to be working a lot of extra hours to get this project to the next stage. If you felt able to support me to take this huge leap, please click below and chip in to help me take Call to Action to the next stage.

Support me here (thank you so much)

I give you my word that I’ll do everything I can to share important information with as many people as possible.

And I’ll be in touch very soon. In the meantime take care,

Yours,

Ju x

Dr Julia Patterson