By Tom de Plume
News emerged this week of a radical restructuring of the way GPs will do business. In an inspired shift from the old, bureaucratic way of doing things, power will be devolved to those who actually create the problems they are solving, thus maintaining ‘continuity of treatment’.
“Our plans are simple”, explained Jes Skelam, of the Ministry of Health-Related Efforts to Reduce Consumption of Non Tax-Yielding Substances. “Wouldn’t it be better if, when you reach the stage where you need a gastric band fitted (and you will), the person arranging for that to be done is the same person who sold you all the hamburgers in the first place? Who is best placed to assess the amount of unhealthy food you have shoved down your slovenly gob in the last twenty years? Is it some quack who doesn’t know you from Adam, and has got nothing to go on but the obvious girth of the sack of lard whose just sat down and reduced the lifespan of his waiting room chair by another three years, and your frankly utterly worthless ‘word’, or the guy who sold you all those extra-mega-buckets and lard-encrusted, deep-fried whales’ scrotums? Who’s going to make the more realistic assessment of your health?”
Skelam elaborated on how the scheme would work. “What will happen is that your local takeaway owner, pub landlord, or sunbed operator, will be given the power to say ‘OK, Fat Steve, as much as it pains me after the last twenty-two years of keeping my daughter’s piano lessons going purely off the back of your pie consumption, I’m going to have to refer you..... to me. Come and see me tomorrow, when I will be wearing my doctor’s hat (OK I know doctors don’t generally wear hats. Stethoscope. I will be wearing my doctor’s stethoscope.)”
Support has poured forth for this entrepreneurial approach. In as little as six months’ time, we could see cigarette companies commissioning cancer operations, car manufacturers prescribing inhalers, even companies such as Swan, the manufacturer of non-safety ‘Vesta’ matches, running local burns units. A proposed amendment to the draft legislation is, however, likely to prevent Eastenders actors from offering counselling, on the basis that they would surely end up just making the person’s life even more miserable.
Some controversy has arisen around suggestions that people will be able to profit from problems they have created themselves, or benefit financially by referring patients on to treatment services they run themselves. Skelam explained, “Well, you see, anyone who thinks that clearly hasn’t looked into the details of the scheme, or heard of our new, super-duper, clearly not-at-all bureaucratic regulator, Mon... Oh, fuck it, I can’t do this. You’re right. Of course you’re right. We haven’t really thought this through. But trust me, you’ve really got better things to worry about. I’ve got one word for you; Murdoch”.
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