Is this the dumbest thing a health minister has ever said?

Copper field slams health minister’s latest idea to ‘make the money go further’

Do you know how annoying earwigs are? Well, I’ve got an eyeworm, and I need to expel it. Are Commentary by Wes Streeting on new budget-adjacent investments to reduce waiting lists: ‘We are sending top teams of top surgeons to hospitals across the country, to reform the way they run their operations, treat more patients and make the money go further. ‘ Only 28 words, but about 400 are needed for catharsis.

‘A crack team of top surgeons’. Wes, buddy, you’re auditioning to be a tabloid, or your AI quote generator has a problem. Crack teams? I thought most surgical support teams today consist of anesthesia staff and an external secretary who never answers the phone? Or maybe I misunderstood and these surgeons will all use crack cocaine as part of the efficiency drive.

And ‘top surgeons’. What the heck is a ‘top surgeon’? Is that ‘upper half’ as in upper GI, thorax and chest? Does this mean we can look forward to a ‘top team of bottom surgeons’ to clear the colorectal queue? Or is Wes suggesting that there is some sort of classification system for surgeons, perhaps based on the London address of their private consultation rooms?

Oh, and if there really are top teams of top surgeons – where are they, who’s going to do their day job, and if they’re so damn good, how is their pay going to fit in with ‘spending the money’? further’?

As for reforming surgery and treating more patients, that should give a warm glow to existing services. What is the implication? That the incumbent surgeons are so stupid that they can’t remember which side the appendix is ​​on? Or that they are so slow that the patient wakes up from the GA by the time they scrub off?

Politicians once tried this top-down trick in general practice, so long ago I can’t even find it on the internet anymore. Really: they nominatedbeacon practices‘ to dispense wisdom and act as boy scouts, lighting the way for our GP stumps. We responded as any egalitarian system does when a hierarchy is imposed: we burned those practices to the ground, and that’s when the “beacon” began to make sense.

So only 28 words, but enough to suggest a lack of understanding of problem solving, an insensitivity to those stressed by the system and a tendency to blame underperformance rather than under-resourcing, all conveyed in language at playground level.

If they really want to storm into top teams of top surgeons, let them storm the House of Commons (SAS style). They could usefully perform some transplants, and you can probably figure out which organ.

Dr. Tony Copperfield is a GP in Essex.

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