Members of the public are to be asked to take in NHS patients recovering from operations so they can recuperate in their spare bedrooms. You’ll get £50 a day for the use of your room so long as you can offer three microwaved meals a day.
You won’t get extra for offering TLC (tender loving care), but you will be expected to converse from time to time with your temporary hospital house guest.
No medical experience needed. You can set your own visiting times for guests and relatives (or just state no visiting allowed).
The Guardian reported today, “The scheme, which is being piloted in Essex, aims to tackle bed shortages and save money but has been criticised by medical professionals and social workers who warn it would give too much responsibility to untrained members of the public.”
One campaign group against the new idea warned that it, “opens a huge can of worms for safeguarding, governance and possible financial and emotional abuse of people at their most vulnerable time”.
What next? Scrap ambulances and call Uber instead?
NHS to hire the unemployed to practice complimentary medicine? (“Nice haircut you have. Great outfit you’re wearing. That rash? Oh, I’m sure nothing to worry about. I can only offer compliments.")
Save the soaring costs of medicines by repackaging Smarties as antibiotics? (Hey, we know placebos work on a significant number of patients. Why not give it a go?)
Pay members of the public to offer ‘tea and sympathy’? “The doctor won’t see you now. But why not pop in to see Mrs Squires at number 48 Acacia Avenue. She’ll give you a nice cuppa and you can tell her all about it.”
Carpenters to get training to do minor surgery on the side? (If you can do a dovetail joint, you can certainly cut out that mole.)
You do knitting? That means you’re familiar with needles! You can offer flu jabs in your front living room. The NHS will pay you £2 a shot.
Great. That’s the poor sorted. (The rich have already got BUPA – the Bourgeois Ulcer Prevention Association).
NHS? Now called National Health Scandal.
Angry, upset, disappointed? Don’t worry. Your next door neighbour now offers counselling.
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The Guardian reported today, “The scheme, which is being piloted in Essex, aims to tackle bed shortages and save money but has been criticised by medical professionals and social workers who warn it would give too much responsibility to untrained members of the public.”
One campaign group against the new idea warned that it, “opens a huge can of worms for safeguarding, governance and possible financial and emotional abuse of people at their most vulnerable time”.
What next? Scrap ambulances and call Uber instead?
NHS to hire the unemployed to practice complimentary medicine? (“Nice haircut you have. Great outfit you’re wearing. That rash? Oh, I’m sure nothing to worry about. I can only offer compliments.")
Save the soaring costs of medicines by repackaging Smarties as antibiotics? (Hey, we know placebos work on a significant number of patients. Why not give it a go?)
Pay members of the public to offer ‘tea and sympathy’? “The doctor won’t see you now. But why not pop in to see Mrs Squires at number 48 Acacia Avenue. She’ll give you a nice cuppa and you can tell her all about it.”
Carpenters to get training to do minor surgery on the side? (If you can do a dovetail joint, you can certainly cut out that mole.)
You do knitting? That means you’re familiar with needles! You can offer flu jabs in your front living room. The NHS will pay you £2 a shot.
Great. That’s the poor sorted. (The rich have already got BUPA – the Bourgeois Ulcer Prevention Association).
NHS? Now called National Health Scandal.
Angry, upset, disappointed? Don’t worry. Your next door neighbour now offers counselling.
______________________________________________________________
Other articles by Jon Danzig:
- The problem with Brexit
- They want their country back, not yours
- EU is not the USSR
- List of the latest articles by Jon Danzig
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