Table of Contents
Daniel Matchett
Daniel Matchett is a Reform Councillor and Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing in Lancashire and Chairman of Reform UK Rossendale and Darwen.
The NHS repeatedly tells us it is politically neutral. Senior managers insist they do not do politics. Yet visit the website of Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust and you will see a very different picture.
The trust runs full Pride Month celebrations with staff stories celebrating transgender journeys. It organises an entire calendar of LGBT History Month events, including a photography competition on what LGBTQ+ means to you, virtual sessions on LGBTQ+ and faith, ‘lunch and learn’ training on supporting trans and gender diverse service users and encouragement for staff to take an ally pledge and wear progress badges.
Black History Month gets its own dedicated page, complete with the hashtag #WEMATTER, events focused on black women and funding for health inequality research. There is a formal ‘Anti-Racist Statement’ committing the trust to becoming truly anti-racist with zero tolerance for racism and a push for Gold status in the NHS BAME framework.
The trust has also published a detailed Green Plan committing to Net Zero carbon emissions by 2040 as part of the NHS Greener agenda. It runs Neurodiversity Celebration Week with personal staff stories about autism and dyslexia diagnoses, holds South Asian Heritage Month events with heritage stories from nurses and doctors, promotes pronoun use in email signatures to spark conversations about gender identity and hosts an annual Inclusion and Belonging Conference.
These are not neutral clinical decisions. They are political choices, identity politics and grievance culture imposed on staff and patients alike.
Meanwhile the main trade union active in the trust, UNISON, runs a national campaign against Reform UK. It produces briefings, posters and postcards that label the party a threat to public services, workers’ rights and the NHS itself. Similar UNISON materials have already appeared on noticeboards in other NHS hospitals.
I served some 20 years as a mental health nurse with the trust and have an unblemished record. In 2024, I was nominated Reform UK’s Parliamentary candidate for Rossendale and Darwen in the General Election. On June 19th 2024 I released a campaign video on X and Facebook. I was speaking to an imaginary patient with no trust logos, no patients, no confidential information. Just a professional, lawful piece of political speech expressing beliefs in economic growth, national sovereignty, secure borders, free speech, low tax, scepticism of Net Zero and rejection of woke ideology.
The reaction was immediate and hostile. The video went viral and the trust launched a full investigation. I was accused of breaching its social media policy and NHS England pre-election guidance. Managers told me I had brought the trust into disrepute. The initial letter warned that the hearing could result in disciplinary action up to and including dismissal. After a pre-hearing they offered me a pre-agreement consisting of a written warning or a full disciplinary hearing. I chose the hearing.
Before the disciplinary hearing I sought professional legal help from solicitor Elliot Hammer of Branch Austin McCormick. He prepared a detailed defence statement on my behalf. This robust submission appears to have forced the trust to properly re-evaluate its position. On September 18th 2024 the panel watched the video, heard the evidence and delivered a clear verdict that there was no case to answer. The panel even referred the trust’s social media policy back to the Policy Review Committee, admitting that key parts of the rules were unclear and open to interpretation. After months of stress and uncertainty I had won the internal disciplinary battle outright. I had won.
Or so I thought.
The stress had already forced me onto sick leave. I had spent thousands on legal advice defending myself. So, I brought an Employment Tribunal claim for discrimination, harassment and victimisation on the grounds of my protected philosophical beliefs, beliefs shared by millions of ordinary Britons.
In May 2025, I was elected as a Reform UK Lancashire County Councillor and subsequently appointed as Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing, an executive position in which I am now responsible for overseeing public health strategy and services across the entire county. In June 2025, Lancashire County Council formally nominated me as their Local Authority Governor to the Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust’s Council of Governors. On August 11th 2025 the trust’s Company Secretary rejected the nomination outright, citing a supposed “conflict of interest” because I am also a member of trust staff.
On October 24th 2025 the Council of Governors reaffirmed the rejection, stating it wanted the role filled by someone “independent of the trust”. The irony is striking as the same NHS Trust that serves Lancashire now refuses to allow the county’s own Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing a seat at its governance table, even though I work only a few bank shifts a month and no longer hold a substantive nursing post. It even went so far as to formally change its own constitution to remove the long-standing tradition of Lancashire County Council (now Reform UK controlled) being the only local authority nominee to its board.
The tribunal hearing is due this summer. It will take place at Manchester Employment Tribunal over five days from August 24th to 28th 2026. The case will examine whether the trust’s actions, from the initial investigation through to the ongoing refusal to accept me as a publicly nominated governor, amounted to unlawful discrimination and victimisation because of my political beliefs.
I did not set out to become a test case. I simply wanted to serve my patients, stand for parliament and now serve my constituents as a councillor. The NHS response shows that, for some parts of the public sector, certain political beliefs are simply not tolerated, no matter how lawful or democratically expressed.
I have launched a Crowd Justice appeal to help cover the substantial legal costs already incurred. Every contribution helps to hold institutions to account and push back against the politicisation of healthcare.
The NHS belongs to the British public and not to any political tribe. It is time it started acting like it.
This article was originally published by the Daily Sceptic.
