Dear Dept Of Health,
I am very pleased to hear you have been following my step by step programme; “How to Sell off the NHS; A Users Guide“.
Obviously you seem to have hit a bit of a bump with the junior doctors- but always happy to troubleshoot a good privatization! Here’s a quick road map to where you’ve gone wrong and what to do to get back on track!

Mistake #1 – You didn’t smear everybody beforehand. A good smear campaign is like suntan lotion- if you don’t get it everywhere then it doesn’t work! Excellent work on attacking GPs and Consultants- but you forgot those pesky junior docs! Nice catch up efforts [1]– but surely you can come up with something better than Facebook holiday snaps?

Mistake #2 – Doctors aren’t miners. [2] Nurses aren’t miners. No one in this situation is a miner. You don’t have to dress up as Thatcher every Halloween. You’ve forgotten the first rule of dismantlement- keep it quiet.

Mistake #3-  Stop being surprised doctors don’t want to screw over other doctors. Nice try with ‘pay protection’ [3]– but you realise this just highlights exactly how much the next generation are getting cut by? Doctors tend to be doctors forever and it’s hard to avoid your junior colleague’s eye for 40 years. You’ll get a squint.

Mistake #4 – You p***d off the anaesthetists. You probably don’t know this but every doctor, at some point in their training, had to phone the anaesthetist and grovel for help. Usually when they were right up s**t creek, minus paddle. No doctor would think hacking them off is a good idea. You could’ve hated on histopathologists until the cows came home by the way. Missed a trick there.

So what to do? Well here’s an idiots guide to breaking the strike and getting those dirty no good training docs into some great cheap labour for the privatization wagon.

1) Keep on spinning – it doesn’t matter what’s true or not. Keep using selective phrases from research about weekend mortality, [4,5] and then mention junior contracts straight after. Hopefully people won’t notice they’re not linked at all. [6] Like when the newspapers put a giant picture of someone they hate on the front page next to a completely unrelated story with an offensive headline like ‘SEX OFFENDER’. Smear them for being militants [7], or trotskyists [8], or extravagant jet setters [9] or even women [10]. Eurgh. Bloody pacifist militant socialist aristocratic 50% of the population.

2) Take the opportunity to completely bury any other problems- cut the NHS bursary [11,12] (oh? You didn’t manage that), carpet the NHS reinstatement bill [13], and quietly suppress safe staffing level reports and whistle-blowing junior docs. [14,15] Keep TTIP super quiet [16]- holy Boris bikes you don’t want the public nose in that!

3) If you get challenged on statistics you’ve used don’t worry- get this phrase made up on some rubber stamps “there is clear clinical evidence of [insert whatever you are wrong about here] – and we make no apology for doing something about it”[17,18,19,20] Stamp it on every response from angry academics who actually wrote the research you have misrepresented. Don’t worry about investigative journalism- pretty rare to find any these days.

4) If you aren’t winning here – just hire a few £million worth of extra spin doctors [21]. Way more value for money than real doctors.

5). Pretend like you’re not actually responsible for this -take every opportunity to ‘slam’ your own organisation. [22,23] Make a slam book. If this isn’t demoralising enough why not leak some ‘well-placed’ sources as veiled threats on the news to get your point across. [24]

6) And whatever you do- don’t sit down with the doctors in a public place. [25] They spend their lives accruing knowledge and applying it in life saving situations – in a head to head debate you will definitely get shown up as a disingenuous moron. But flush out those handy think tanks [26] you pay so much for and get them out there as ‘balanced’ opinion holders. No one will notice their huge conflict of interest as privatisation lobbyists taking cash from big tobacco on the side. [27]

7) Money. Don’t mention it unless preceded by the phrase ‘extra’ [28] or simply total up expected underfunding as five yearly totals so they sound huge. Ignore the fact this is complete nonsense. [29,30] Pretend hospitals are like houses or supermarkets- people understand those. If you cut a hospital budget- that sounds bad, but if you tell a hospital to ‘live within their means’ [31]– well, that’s just good old fashioned common sense.

And don’t worry if you lose your job. Some very friendly chaps at a grateful private health company will greatly appreciate all that you’ve done for them while fondling the public purse. They really appreciate it. REALLY. [32]

And the best news of all? Even if you p**s off every doctor and nurse in the country they will still give you the same world class service they give every patient if you need them, any hour of any day. Phew. Idiots.

Juniordoctorblog.com

 

[1] http://www.donotlink.com/htxh
[2] http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/nov/19/nhs-bosses-pressure-hunt-arbitration-junior-doctors
[3] http://www.nhsemployers.org/your-workforce/need-to-know/junior-doctors-contract/faq
[4] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34598335
[5] http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2016/01/13/junior-doctors-jeremy-hunt-professor-nhs-stroke-deaths_n_8973206.html
[6] https://juniordoctorblog.com/2016/01/11/the-hateful-eight-an-exploration-of-the-evidence-presented-for-jeremy-hunts-weekend-effect/
[7] http://www.donotlink.com/hady
[8] http://www.donotlink.com/i20t
[9] http://www.donotlink.com/hu3o
[10] http://www.donotlink.com/hwtn
[11] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34919523
[12] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35263402
[13] http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jan/26/caroline-lucas-green-party-labour-repeal-tory-nhs-reforms
[14] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/nhs/12110806/AandE-units-may-be-short-staffed-half-the-time-secret-guidance-says.html
[15] http://www.54000doctors.org/thecase/2-what-is-whistle-blowing-protection.html
[16] http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/26/anger-government-blocks-ttip-legal-documents-nhs-health-service
[17] http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/oct/15/doctors-cabinet-office-investigate-jeremy-hunt
[18] http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/plan-to-put-price-tag-on-nhs-medicines-is-a-headline-grabbing-gimmick-says-journal-10444508.html
[19] http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jk-rowling-supports-junior-doctors-6650327
[20] http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/furious-junior-doctors-deliver-giant-7221155
[21] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-accuses-government-of-hiding-rising-special-advisers-bill-a6775561.html
[22] http://www.donotlink.com/i212
[23] http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/jeremy-hunt-slams-nhs-over-utterly-unacceptable-failure-to-probe-deaths-34276082.html
[24] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35298370
[25] http://medlines.org/2015/11/24/jeremy-hunt-snubs-nhs-junior-doctors-strike-debate/
[26] http://www.donotlink.com/i217
[27] http://www.tobaccotactics.org/index.php/Adam_Smith_Institute
[28] http://www.itv.com/news/update/2015-04-11/jeremy-hunt-we-can-fund-extra-money-for-nhs/
[29] http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-george-osborne-generous-nhs/22104
[30] https://juniordoctorblog.com/2016/01/05/its-the-spin-that-wins/
[31] https://www.facebook.com/JeremyHuntMP/posts/992474864129700
[32] http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/oct/20/andrew-lansley-advise-firms-healthcare-reforms