Category: The NHS

WHAT’S THE CASH VALUE OF UNCUT BS : The NHS is feeling relieved today after Downing Street found a way to secure the promise on the big red bus.

“The £350m to the NHS bus? We’ve sorted it,” a Downing Street source told LCD Views, “don’t say we don’t keep our promises.”

Whether or not the additional funding promised by the Prime Minister on the 2016 EUref campaign trail would ever be delivered has been a source of ongoing contention.

“No more. They can have the actual bus. It’s iconic. A collectible item from the UK’s struggle to free itself from global realities and continental interdependence in a rapidly changing, often hostile world. The extra funding promised can now be considered delivered and that one has been got done too! Just like the assurance no one is threatening the UK’s place in the single market. Oh and EU27 citizens’ rights will not change as a result of Brexit. Oh and we’ll have forty trade deals ready to sign the moment we leave the EU.”

The delivery of the bus will also ease concerns that the NHS was going to get the money promised only as a result of a fire-sale if its assets to US private health interests.

But how will the receipt of the bus translate into hard cash?

“They can auction it off if they want? Certain to raise billions when it goes under the hammer. Or keep it and charge access? Wherever it rests is bound to be a site of pilgrimage for the Brexit faithful.”

Maybe stick a pole inside it and charge for technological lessons?

“Corr, now you’re talking. Every course will easily take in over £100,000 and you can fill the bus and charge like a wounded bull every day.”

Brexit, it’s up to everyone to help make it as successful as the promises that got us into this mess.

The government has given away – not even sold – masses of confidential healthcare data to Amazon. This can only mean one thing. Alexa is going to take over the NHS.

The cradle to grave online retailer, which will happily sell you a cradle or indeed a grave, now knows your entire medical history. So don’t be surprised if Alexa suddenly says “drop the bacon sandwich, fat boy!” or sends you a bulk order of Viagra through your Amazon Prime account.

Now every time you get a sniffle, Alexa will let you grumble for ten minutes and then prescribe you antibiotics. So long as you ask nicely at eight o’clock in the morning, then wait like an idiot for 25 minutes while Alexa puts on her makeup and has a snack.

The prescription will cost the standard rate of, well, whatever the pharmaceutical companies decide they can get away with. Plus £19.99 for next day delivery. Plus a hike in your medical insurance premium. You will also get to peruse alternative drugs, as Amazon will dutifully inform you that “customers who were prescribed penicillin were also prescribed…”.

Alexa will automatically inform your employer whenever you pull a sickie, and suspend your broadband if you do a Google search for porn. 

Alexa will book you hospital appointments, if she thinks it is necessary. The waiting time for appointments will be inversely proportional to your income.

Alexa will confine you to bed and order you food from Just Eat. She will then forbid you to eat it because it’s full of sugar, fat and salt, but charge your current account anyway.

Alexa will count the cigarettes you smoke, the alcohol you drink, and the illegal drugs you consume. So don’t be surprised when she buys you a subscription to Alcoholics Anonymous and an oxygen cylinder.

Big Sister is watching you.

The NHS is safe in our profit-hungry hands, claims Unhealthy Secretary Matt Hancock. I won’t sell the NHS, he says, or at least I won’t sell my shares in NHS plc.

“It was ours to sell anyway,” snivels an unrepentant Hancock. “Conservative governments have poured countless billions into the NHS, it’s about time we saw some return on our investment.”

Standards of healthcare remain unaffected, Hancock claims. “Obviously we had to lay off a lot of the overpaid dead wood,” he said. “Quite frankly, younger, hungrier, cheaper staff can do the same work as an expensive consultant. It’s done wonders for the profit margins!”

Hancock denies accusations that Americans have bought up our hospitals, and that British people now only receive treatment if they have taken out health insurance from Hancock and his mates.

To discover the truth, LCD Views’ Paying Through The Ear, Nose And Throat correspondent visited Trump Hospital somewhere in Middle England.

Unfortunately, we were unable to gain access since the bouncers took exception to the fact that we refused to tip them several hundred dollars. So we went round the back to have a fag with some of the staff.

“Working conditions are totally shit,” said junior medical associate Penny Sillyn. “Stupid job title as well, it means naff all and the pay is atrocious too. The patients call us McNurses.”

She shivered in her inadequate uniform. “We are supposed to behave like we are in a Carry On film,” she complained. “Hence the low cut top and skimpy skirt. There aren’t any hunky doctors, just twats who can sell themselves to the bosses, but can’t do the job. It’s like working in retail, but all the customers are dying.”

Surely your job is to make them better?

“Yeah, right,” she retorted. “Our job is to extract as much insurance money as possible before we send them home to die. Except for the loaded wankers on the Executive Ward, of course.”

With that she returned to work the rest of her 48 hour shift.

Health Secretary Jeremy C Hunt made the announcement, which went almost unnoticed thanks to Boris Johnson’s diversionary tactics. NHS customers – no longer “patients” – will be expected to arrange their own transport to hospital by booking an Uber ambulance from their mobile phone.

Rather than the current tedious rigmarole, in which you ring 999 and have to justify your needs, now you can bypass the old system using the new streamlined service. A poster campaign is to be rolled out across London and other major UK cities. The slogan will say, “Broken a leg? Book an ambulance using our FREE app!”

Licenced black cabs and independent taxi companies are likely to follow suit. “This will give customers the best possible choice of ambulance provision,” said Hunt to LCD’s Throwing Public Services To The Sharks correspondent. “It will also reduce the time spent waiting for an ambulance, and will release funds to be spent on customer services.”

Uber plan many innovations. There will be a tracking device which allows you to trace the progress of your ambulance. A group pricing scheme will operate, whereby you agree to share an ambulance with fellow customers for a discount. Surge pricing will be applied to reduce demand at peak times.

Already Uber are being undercut (and cut up) by rickshaw drivers. Other options include a “Heritage” ambulance experience, which ranges from a top-of-the-range landau, via horse and cart, to a bloke giving you a fireman’s lift.

Campaigner Ozzy Dodger was not happy with the news. “It’s a disgrace!” he bellowed. “Uber ambulance drivers have no medical training, no DBS checks, in some cases no driving licence! This is typical privatisation behaviour. The public are being told to pay for something inferior that was once free and high quality. This is what ‘efficiency means!”

With that, he stepped into the Uber waiting patiently to take him to his apoplexy management session.