Britain's hospitals are turning to Big Issue-style magazine-sellers to raise cash. Volunteers will tour hospital wards and waiting areas to sell a new magazine to patients and visitors. A portion of the sale price will be ploughed back into the health service.
Feelgood Magazine will be launched this week in 200 hospitals across the country. For every £1 copy sold, 40 pence will go to the local hospital. It runs on the same principle as the Big Issue, which the homeless sell to earn money.
Sales of the first edition are expected to be 150,000, but its founding editor, Dr Liz Wilkinson, hopes it will rise to a million copies a month, generating around £5 million a year for the NHS.
The magazine will contain 'optimistic' health stories, ensuring it does not frighten patients or become a 'hypochondriacs gazette'. It is aimed at answering questions that patients may not have time to ask a doctor.
Wilkinson, a surgeon at Moorfields Eye Hospital, denied it was a sign of desperation: 'Fundraising is part of the way the NHS is run. If we can do as good a job as the Big Issue, we'll be very happy.' The League of Friends - an umbrella group for hospital volunteers - already raises £30 million for the NHS.
Wilkinson insists that sick patients won't feel under pressure to buy the magazine. It won't be sold in intensive care wards.
A Department of Health spokeswoman insisted money raised would be in addition to government funding.
anthony.browne@observer.co.uk
