Choosing your hospital – a patient’s guide

If you’ve made it past your GP (well done) and a battery of tests, and you’ve got medical support for an operation, then Good News!  You can now choose where to have your NHS operation, and you are guaranteed a choice of at least five hospitals.

Here’s how it works:

You can go to your nearest NHS hospital.   For reasons to do with economies of scale and budgetary constraints, it’s 10–15 miles away.  Various transport options are available, but it would be brilliant if you could drive.   Convenient for you, and twenty to fifty quid in parking charges for the hospital.  Its clinical ratings are average, if you ignore the maternity scandal.

You can go to your next nearest NHS hospital, which is 15-30 miles away.  The only transport option is to drive.   Why would there be public transport to a hospital 30 miles away?   The clinical ratings are average, if you ignore the organ harvesting scandal.

Your third, fourth and fifth choices are all a long way away.  You will need to book a hotel.  The clinical ratings are average if you ignore (a) the doctor that was on Panorama and got struck off, (b) the damage done by collapsing ceilings because of RAAC cement and (c) any problems caused by understaffing and underqualified North Korean doctors.

And we’ve spent a lot of money on a new NHS App, so that you can make your choice quickly and easily using your mobile phone.  If you can use one in your condition.  See you soon!

PS: Have you thought about going private?   Hungary and Turkey are both good, and very affordable for self-funders.

Picture credit: Wix AI

Government achieves substantial growth in the can-kicking industry

The British can-kicking industry is booming – after a kick-start from the government. Critics say that it would be much cheaper to ship the cans to China, for them to be kicked there using forced labour. And savings would be even greater if China also supplied the cans. The debate about whether we should export the cans for kicking or preserve our own can-kicking industry, probably by inviting immigrants to come and kick them for us, continues.

Although he has not yet set up a Can Kicking Czar, Keir Starmer has already declared a series of milestones, to measure the progress of the cans in their trajectory. He is understood to have also created an equal opportunities monitoring committee, to ensure diversity in the cans being kicked – large, small, steel and aluminium cans – and among the kickers – women, men, and undecided. And there is a health-and-safety committee to assess the risk of the can going in the wrong direction and hitting someone.

However, there are still questions about funding. Who's going to supply the can, and the boots for the kicker? Which can company will get the lucrative contract to supply the can, and the boots? And what about the long grass? Where should it be? In London as usual? Or would regional long grass better deliver levelling up?

When praised for his 'can do' attitude, one government minister said, 'Those who can kick cans do, and those who cannot kick cans set up commissions to study who might be kicked into action as can-kickers.'

[ Hat-tip to deskpilot ]

Petition to stop the use of petitions passes two million signatures

A petition submitted to the UK Parliament petitions website calling for an end to the acceptance of petitions as a means to obtain parliamentary debate on the matter raised in the petition had passed the two million signature mark as of 11.35 and 19 seconds. 2 million and 1, 2 million and 8, 2 million and 11, 2 million and 16…

Critics of the petitioning system say it’s just a way for angry phone-in callers and students to weaponise their names, with many actually going on to talk about their involvement in signing a petition as if it were a measure of personal sacrifice and national service, thus getting them off the need to do anything materially practical to improve other people’s lives for up to 5 years afterwards. The current rules are:

- At 10,000 signatures, the government will formally respond.

- At 100,000 signatures, the request will be considered by the petitions committee for debate in Parliament.

- At 10,000,000 signatures, Starmer comes round your house and says the government is ‘listening.’

- At 15,000,000 signatures, the petition gets its own Netflix documentary.

- At 20,000,000 signatures, everyone realizes its Chinese bots.

The petition, organized by a group calling themselves The Anti-Petitions Petitioners Petition Lobby, is, however, drawing the ire of a rival organization, Bring Up Smart Young Consciously Upstanding Newly Trained Students (or BUSYC*%TS), known for its zeal in organizing and submitting petitions on matters as diverse as human trafficking and white dog shit.

A spokesperson for BUSYC*%TS said, ‘By petitioning against petitions, The Anti-Petitions Petitioners Petition Lobby is petitioning for petitions to be…’ but suddenly trailed off, claiming the word ‘petition’ was starting to sound odd, like one of those words that the more you repeat or say it, it sounds phonetically random, bizarre, with meaning divorcing itself from letter arrangement, and, finally slapping one ear with the palm of his hand, walked away.

Meanwhile, as of 11.37 and 39 seconds, the petition submitted to the UK Parliament petitions website calling for an end to the acceptance of petitions as a means to obtain parliamentary debate on the matter raised in the petition had passed the. 2 million 157 mark, 2 million 161, 2 million 163…

Image: Pixabay/maximilianovich