FOR those people who took a stand for change in 2015 the general election seems like it was months ago, but we all still carry the scars.

I was proud to be part of a small movement of determined people who marched 300 miles from Jarrow to Parliament to inspire others to vote and save NHS services from closure.

Thousands joined us but the People’s March for the NHS didn’t rest on its laurels once the 300 miles were completed. A determined group of its co-ordinators, predominately trade unionists, picked up the baton and have kept the campaign on the road and launched the People’s Vote for the NHS.

We give up our weekends time and time again in the struggle for a better world, for those we know and those we don’t.

On May 7 it would have been easy to feel like it had all been for nothing.

Seeing towns where A&Es had been axed vote Conservative leaves you feeling like your ideals have been left in tatters.

While we represent the interests of the vast majority out there, the 99 per cent, as the night wore on it became depressingly obvious that we’d either tried our hardest and failed, or that we’re just not representative of many of those who voted.

But it wasn’t just undecided voters who didn’t identify with our goals. Between those who marched there emerged apparently irresolvable differences of opinion on what was involved in saving the NHS. On the sole issue of health it was hard enough for campaigners to see eye to eye.

To seasoned campaigners this won’t come as any surprise, and when Labour tells us that four out of five voters they need to win back voted Tory, we can all see in which direction the needle of its compass is swinging.

It’s tempting to take a narrow view, to focus on specific groups of voters or particular issues. In an age where archaic ideologies and empires tear the world into strips, to fight against an election here, a Bill there, and theorise ourselves ever upwards into more diverse and rarefied senses of injustice provides a sense of identity and security.

In this country alone we now face the sale of the NHS, a war on organised labour and yet more savage and inhumane attacks on welfare and public services. In the capital we have social cleansing, poor doors, anti-homeless spikes.

For five more years we’ll have aggressive tax avoidance for the haves, the bedroom tax for the have-nots, abuses of democratic power and the vicious injustice of inequality. And when the biggest newspaper in this country precedes a Tory reinterpretation of human rights by promoting the opinion that asylum -seekers are “cockroaches,” then it’s clear that we’re all standing on the edge of an epoch.

In the villages, towns and cities we were welcomed by many, challenged by some, but all were united in feeling that there was something fundamentally concerning about the society we shared.

There are many faces that people have given to their disquiet, but it is our task now to show them that when, in his cynical promotion of self-interest, Boris Johnson tells us all that “greed is good,” he is attacking the very basis of society.

He’s attacking the norms and ideals that all of us share collectively and individually, not only about how we deal with the rich, the way we treat the vulnerable and the way the NHS is organised and delivered in the future, but the fundamental rules that will determine what can and cannot be done to our children, our grandchildren, our future.

It is because of this that the People’s March for the NHS must and will continue the march. Our march was effective in helping to bring the NHS to the front of the party political campaigns. Even if it was met with ambiguous and disingenuous commitments, we have shown them the people’s commitment to Bevan’s principles.

When Michael Sheen spoke at our Tredegar rally he was channelling the national conscience.

So as we turn to celebrate the NHS’s birthday on July 5, this year we remain strong in our resolve that the People’s March for the NHS will continue with our efforts to retain an NHS for future generations.

Our priorities remain our five key demands as unveiled in London on September 6 2014. We want to see the toxic Health and Social Care Act 2012 scrapped, we still say no to TTIP and any other trade agreements that could harm our NHS. We want to see the roll back of privatisation in our NHS.

Unsafe cuts and closures will affect us all and as a campaign group we continue with our efforts to fight these locally. We can’t ignore that PFI debt that has crippled our NHS trusts and with the numbers of NHS trusts increasingly returning deficits we know we desperately need a fair funding settlement and PFI debt to be reviewed.

But above all the People’s Vote for the NHS is putting all its effort, time and campaigning into the beating heart of our NHS; the NHS staff. We demand a fair deal and fair pay for NHS staff.

Because let’s face it, the election was just one battle in a war that’s being waged against society itself. And that’s why the People’s March for the NHS will continue to march — and while we will wear scars, we wear them with pride.

Happy Birthday NHS, and a huge thank you to the amazing NHS staff.

• You can help by joining the thousands already signed up fighting for our NHS at peoplesvotefornhs.org.uk.