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The biggest part of my work as Minister of Retention has been running the NHS scheme. The NHS sees 400 wellness worth of food delivered every day FREE to all eUK citizens under 2 months old who apply. In this, the first half of my end-of-month report, I'll be outlining a few stats about how the NHS has performed in helping our new players and building the future of the eUK.

Just a note, what I'm talking about here is the basic NHS scheme which is open to all. There's also the NHS MU which whilst mutually exclusive with this scheme (ie people who get the increased supplies in the MU don't also get the base supplies from me)


The NHS - Offering people a helping hand (on a hairy arm) since a few months ago.

On the 6th of June, when I started this job, I implemented one of jamesw's election pledges - to extend the NHS supply of food from a player's first month to their first two. When this was announced, some people were concerned about the cost, whilst others were convinced this would increase our expenditure by outrageous proportions and single-handedly doom the country economically.*

*I'm only exaggerating a little bit, that's the weird thing.

This hasn't happened. Mostly because when someone on the NHS reaches a month of age, their supplies are stopped, and they get told about their options, which include getting another month of supplies if they ask nicely. Of the 73 so far this month who've reached a month with the NHS, 21 accepted the offer of a second month, the others all deciding they were ready to face this wild world alone, thanked the NHS for supporting them, and rode off into the sunset.


Almost these 21 people are still receiving NHS supplies.

As well as this, applications were opened to any player older than 1 month but younger than 2 months to apply as well, of which there were 17. Of these 17, 7 are still active and receiving NHS supplies, 3 have since joined the NHS MU and had their supplies handled by their team, and 5 have reached the age of 2 months, and 'graduated' the NHS scheme with a boost which will see them become the great clickers of tomorrow.


This means a massive 88% retention amongst older signups.

One could argue someone who's been playing the game for more than a month is probably going to stick around anyway, making my approach to help them as Minister of Retention a bit redundant. And that's a fair point. However, with the recent Battle Divisions update, making sure our Division 1 and 2 fighters are equipped and active will do wonders for the UK.



The real benefit of the NHS is to those youngest players, the newest sign-ups who need the most help. Since I started this job on June 6th, there have been 142 applications from such people. Of these, 41 still receive the NHS supply today, and 39 transferred to the NHS MU, where they remain active and fight for the good of the nation. The rest have either been removed due to inactivity or various other reasons (typically getting themselves banned for multis or in one person's case leaving the country. Go figure.)




So overall that's a 60% retention rate this month. Whilst admittedly, that doesn't sound overwhelming, let's just remember that eRepublik is actually not a very interesting game. I'd bet the number of new players we'd keep around would be alot less without the NHS, and keeping our country strong until the eventual update which will actually make this game something I'd want to tell my friends about will ensure the eUK remains great for years to come.



Feeding so many people has been no small task. This month I've overseen the distribution of the equivalent of 122062 Q5 food to those people described above, and those already on the NHS from last month. That's cost the government over 231 thousand GBP this month so far. That's about 5 full days of national income - which is alot, but it's worth it.


Keep an eye out for the second half of the Ministry of Retention end-of-month report, where I'll be giving out a big thank you to everyone who's made the NHS scheme possible, and letting you know about the success of the mentoring program.

Blue And Evil, Minister of Retention