I feel a coronary coming on… The number of managers in the NHS in England last year rose by nearly 12%, to just under 45,000. During this period, the number of qualified nurses rose by less than 2%.
Is there a point at which the people of this country follow the example of Peter Finch’s bonkers news anchor in the 1976 film, Network, by throwing open their windows and shouting “We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it any more!”?
What possible set of circumstances would lead anyone not currently chemically coshed and strapped to a bed in a psychiatric ward to think this was a good idea? What question could possibly have prompted the answer, “more NHS managers”?
It hasn’t been easy, but I’ve come up with a few:
“What is absolutely the last thing the health service needs right now?”
“What would be the most grotesquely unjustifiable use of people’s taxes at this point?”
“You know, the economy’s doing so well right now we need to soak up some of the surplus by pissing it away in a cavalier fashion on something so obviously pointless that the few tax payers left who are not directly employed by the state will have apoplexy. Can anyone think of a way to do that?”
“What would add weight to our opponents’ contention that we’ve spent 13 years pouring eye-wateringly vast reservoirs of cash into already grossly overmanned public services without ever seeing any improvements?”
“Patients are dying in their own faeces in superbug-infested hospitals because we’ve given nurses an exaggerated sense of their own status, and bussed in an army of cleaners from ‘emerging nations’ to deal with hygiene. What can we do to make this appalling situation even worse?”
“What could possibly be more pointless than more Racial Awareness Outreach Officers?”
“Patricia Hewitt was possibly the most profligate and ineffective health minister in history – what would her answer to our current problems have been?”
“My civil servants have identified a lack of red tape as a real problem in the NHS. What can we do to increase bureaucracy?”
“Oh God, we’ve got all these ditzy, unemployable left-wingers emerging from former polytechnics with meaningless degrees in the sort of non-subjects that employers laugh at. Is there any way of making sure they don’t bump up the unemployment figures?”
(Dripping with sarcasm) “Well, if anyone has an even more stupid suggestion, I’m sure we’d all simply love to hear it!”
And this government, this absolute shower, this affront to human dignity, this collective insult to human intelligence, justice, common sense, probity and decency, is only a few points behind in the polls?
Pass the sick-bag, nurse!
I forgot, you don’t do that any more. Could you ask the cleaner…. oh, okay, well I’m sure they’ll pick up the language eventually. What about that nice compassionate-looking lady with the clip-board just outside – oh, I see, a manager. Okay, I’ll just lie here covered in vomit until my family arrives. Oh dear, they can’t touch me because of new health and safety regulations – and my food can’t be brought to me because of the stench, and you’ve run out of wheelchairs because they’re being used by all the foreigners in for an abortion. No, I understand perfectly, sorry to trouble you! No, I wasn’t being sarcastic… but I can’t leave now because I can’t actually walk. Yes, you’re right, I should have thought about that before impugning you’re saint-like capacity for compassion. There, there, don’t cry – have some more of my taxes, please, and I promise to be good. You won’t even know I’m here. Yes, I realise you’d already forgotten I was here in any case. Not another word. Promise.
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