This week Andy Burnham gave the NHS a vessel of empty promises. This glib new minister claims to have been inspired by dedicated hospital workers, so let me unpick the new Labour pledges.
I’ll start with Burnham’s apparently impeccable CV - faith school, Cambridge, parliamentary researcher, spin doctor, MP. In fact the bloke has never had a proper job and I don’t anticipate that he’ll do a decent job now.
When he talks, he holds his hands in that Tony Blair, ‘I’ve just dropped my football’ position, except his football is bigger than Blair’s ever was. Heaven help us if there’s a correlation between the amount of spin and the size of the imaginary football (I’d say at a rough estimate we can anticipate it’s going to be quadrupled).
If you look at his personal website, there’s a typo on the welcome page. For a chap with an MA in English, that does not fill me with confidence in his ability to sort out the single biggest organisation in the UK, and indeed the third biggest employer in the world (for all you anoraks, the Chinese Army wins followed by the Indian State Railway).
Let’s not forget, this is the chap who whinged repeatedly to the Parliamentary fees office, that if they didn’t allow him one single claim for over £16,000 he might have to get a divorce. He also charged tax payers £19.99 for an IKEA bathrobe, wearing one would be grounds for divorce alone in my opinion.
According to The Mirror, in an article written in the most oleaginous flattering terms, he had this epiphany when he met a hospital porter. To quote: “He spent two weeks travelling around the country, spending a day alongside frontline staff.” So what the heck was he doing the other 13 days? Racking up more ridiculous expense claims no doubt…
So what are the promises? Free prescriptions will be considered. Apparently 80% of the population never pay anyway and cancer patients get free prescriptions - I’ve always had to pay for my NHS prescriptions for Tamoxifen, so how does that work?
Further improvements in NHS dentistry are essential. It should be pretty easy to improve the handful of remaining NHS dentists, if you can find one.
Burnham also insisted he “would finish the job of ending the scandal of mixed-sex wards”. Hold on a sec, no one has even started the job yet.
He wants more health authorities to plough money into gym sessions, exercise bikes and time at swimming pools. Good thought you might think, but here’s the rub. He wants DOCTORS TO MAKE SURE THEY ACTUALLY USE THEM. Sorry to get shouty, but it’s hard even to get all your sodding patient’s to turn up. What are we supposed to do? OFFER THEM A LIFT.
That’s it. Five objectives. Great. Chancellor Alistair Darling has already warned that taxes will have to go up to cover the cost of these earth-shattering initiatives. At this rate, I’m going to have to get in on it and start employing my husband…
Tags: Andy Burnham, Prescription charges
