Electronic braying noises. A Tardis appears. Out step Drs Crippen and Grumble. They stand side by side, surveying the scene. Dr Crippen has aged, and now looks like the first Doctor Who.
Dr Crippen: Grumble! Sorry to drag you away from the fun, old boy.
Dr Grumble: That’s alright sir.
Dr Crippen: War’s not going very well, you know.
Dr Grumble: Oh my God!
Dr Crippen: We are two down. Marshals Field and Meldrum have joined the enemy.
This is my last Chair as Postman of Council, and I write it with great joy. The last three years have been the most wonderful time; it’s been a great privilege to travel the length and breadth of the UK telling the great unwashed how to live their lives. But the real privilege has been being able to meet and suck up to politicians, journos and other movers and shakers across the country in my bid to become England’s next Chief Medical Officer. It’s been wonderful to see the great way these people lap up everything I have to say. In this, I do of course take my lead from my hero, Sir Liam Donaldson, England’s last CMO. If I can aspire to be even half as wonderful as Sir Liam, then I shall be well pleased.
RNLI crews, expert mariners that they are, often have to deal with casualties. The Institution has recently attempted to simplify first aid for crews by introducing ‘Big sick/Little sick’, an approach which reduces initial assessment of a casualty to simple question. It is a clever approach, and Dr No has decided to apply it to a question that has been ruffling him lately: whether Scot Junior was entirely innocent in his fate? He did, after all, build an impressive log cabin, and dumped it where it could be read. Might he in some more significant way have been the architect not just of his cabin, but of his own fate? In the battle between Needham and Scot Junior, who of the two is the bigger Richard? Who, when we get to the bottom line, is the ten bob note, and who the two bob bit?
Medium shot of Kemp standing, arms folded across chest, outside a Nissen Hut.
KEMP (to camera): I’ve been given exclusive access to one of the most feared gangs in the country. A gang responsible for mayhem and misery on a colossal scale, a gang so powerful that it can and at times does hold the country to ransom, but, at the same time, never shirks from bank-rolling its pals. A gang so heinous that few dare speak its real name. Instead, it is the gang simply known as (dramatic pause) The Cabinet.
Camera pans to Nissen Hut, then back to Kemp who walks towards hut. Shaky handheld camera follows. The door has a dilapidated sign nailed to it which says ’Keep Out’.
In the light of the BBC’s blackout of news coverage of the NHS revolution, certain insurgents within the Corporation have been making their own programmes to cover the shortfall. Dr No was lucky enough to be given access to I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue’s NHS Special – and has kindly been given permission to publish a short extract.
Chairman Dee: NHS managers have been getting a lot of flak recently, being blamed with ruining the once efficient running of the national health service. There is talk of mass redundancies. Would any of the team like to suggest films that might appeal to hospital managers who have fallen on hard times and are stuck at home with nothing but a DVD to watch?
Many doctors in the United Kingdom will have recently received a copy of Count Rubin’s New Year round-robin ‘Be Ye of Good Cheer’ letter. Dr No can reveal that Count Rubin has also recorded a New Year message, shortly to be made available to younger members of the profession who either can’t be bothered to open GMC letters, or if they do, lack the motivation to read them. In keeping with the Council’s new media-rich interactive way, this message will be made available as a podcast. For older members of the profession who can’t be messing with all that new-fangled stuff, Dr No is pleased to present The Official Transcript of Count Rubin’s New Year Podcast to the Profession:
Good Evening. I have recently been travelling around the country on your behalf, and at your expense, visiting some of the chaps with whom I hope to be shaping your future…
Embarrassed by his previous clumsy attempt at spoofing carols in the political way, Dr No now risks adding extra insult to his earlier incompetence by hamming up another dearly beloved Christmas Carol. Dr No begs forgiveness from all those who love our traditional carols, and promises that in future he will leave such delicate matters to those like Anna (her dementia poems are especially moving) who know how to do verse properly.
Dramatis Personæ
King Field, out-going Chief Pongo.
JD, a Jobbing Doctor.
The Darzi of Dagenham, a Stooge.
Sir Sidney Ruff-Grumble , a Hospital Doctor.
Queen Enchilada, Chief Pongo elect.
ACT I
Scene I—The Tudor splendour of Richmond House, a GP commissioning group hide-away deep in the heart of the Essex countryside.
Enter King Field, in a silly red and yellow hat.
Field. Infamy, infamy! They’ve all got it in for me!
Medium shot. Sixteen business types strut across London’s Millennium Bridge to the accompaniment of a revved up version of Prokofiev’s Dance of the Knights. The business types are not ordinary business types – they are GP business types.
Voiceover: It’s the job interview from hell. From across the country, Britain’s brightest GP commissioning prospects head for London.
Cut to smug GP business type, large phallic buildings in background.
Smug GP: There’s absolutely nothing mediocre about me. I’m supremely intelligent, ambitious, I’m an all round gifted individual.
Two out of three NEDs clueless, report shows.
Dial-a-death-rate pollsters Dr Foster and pals, the ‘UK’s market-leading provider of information, analysis and targeted communications to health and social care organisations’ has published its 2010 Intelligent Board report.
‘The Intelligent Board 2010: Patient Experience’ challenges NHS boards and NEDs to ‘wake up and smell the coffee’ over patient experience.
The report found that only one in three non-executive directors feel ‘very well informed’ or ‘well informed’ about patient experience at their trust. Over half of all NEDs surveyed admitted spending less than 10% of their time considering patient experience.