I often wonder how SE is interpreted within the NHS, or even by government, noting that it can sometimes raise hostility perhaps due to lack of understanding.

One of the reactions I hear most often here in a community earmarked as a Pathfinder trust, is that it's just to reduce costs, handing over to a mix of volunteers and private business set on profiting from ill health in others.

I know this isn't easy to get across, in fact when attempting to explain it to one of the local advocates for the Pathfinder Trust, I was curtly informed that "Charity begins at home".

Now I know it's not charity, more social investment, but how does one convey the bigger picture.

For example, as a local software business, which although it does have NHS customers, can one demonstrate a relationship to healthcare. I will try.

Over the last decade we've been working in Eastern Europe, where the self-propagating mechanism of corruption and poverty is at the root of many social problems and large among these are childcare institutions, In a vicious cycle of crime, prostitution and sexual exploitation it has caused HIV infection to rocket, now 1.6% of population by conservative estimates in Ukraine where few dare reveal their status. With hundreds millions of dollars given for prevention and little reaching those afflicted, This is not something which respects national boundaries, so there's self interest to be noted.

One answer, instead of the conventional approach of trickle down development, is to apply the same measures advocated here for the NHS to empower communities directly, bypassing parasitic interests. It is done through actvism, raising awareness that things are being done badly and offering a stratey for change, based largely on the potential of social enterprise,

This then, is what we want to convey. That social enterprise of any form is working in the common interest and should not be interpreted selectively for local healthcare providers, there is a bigger picture concerning our future health and security, if not a moral obligation.

http://www.p-ced.com/projects/ukraine/