The key to a good party consultation

The great Professor Darzi has graced the Internet forum run by Netmums with his mighty presence this week. The question below is an example of the great cunning that has gone into our NHS review consultation:

"Hospitals: best or nearest?

When thinking about hospitals.... Is it better to have access to the best treatment possible or the nearest? (Bearing in mind it is not possible to have the best treatment at all hospitals, because the degree of specialisation means it cannot be provided in every location.)"

Something that we have learnt after many years of fine-tuning the art of conning the public with dishonest consultations is that by starting with a false premise in the question, one can cynically get the answer one is looking for. I'll explain how it works. It is pretty obvious that the best structure for a health service like the NHS is a kind of pyramid structure, primary care to secondary care to tertiary care and so on.

At the party we are keen to sell of primary care to our friends in the altruistic private sector in an attempt to raise funds for the forthcoming election, part of the privatisation process is the undermining of good specialist services at local hospitals and replacing them with polyclinics. The polyclinics are a little unsafe for patients as they do not have the adequate clinical backup for when things go wrong, but they will be very lucrative for our friends in the city. Instead of asking the public a fair question like:

"Would you like a sensible mix between big specialist centres and medium sized local hospitals so that most of your needs could be catered for locally, but for slightly rarer problems you would occasionally have to travel a bit further?"

We couldn't ask this question because it would result in the service remaining as it is, ie a sensible service that balances complex needs against each other. We had to create a false choice between the biggest specialist centre and smaller local hospital, so that we can then use answers as evidence that people want the best care, then shut local hospitals down; do you see the genius now? The question also ignores the fact that by replacing local hospitals with polyclinics patients will get a poorer standard of care than they previously got at the local hospitals, the beauty of the polyclinic is that it can be spun as 'care near to home'. Imagine if we actually followed through the 'best' care to its logical conclusion, we would be left with one super size hospital in the whole country, even a small child can appreciate that this is a daft way to run a health care system.

So there we have it, to get the answer you are looking for in a consultation, make sure that you start with a false premise in the question that gives the respondent no option other than to add evidence to your predetermined plan of action. This is what we are doing for the NHS review consultation. We want to shut local hospitals, privatise primary care and save money; so we are using these devious consultation techniques to get exactly the answers we want to hear. There are many other tips for a successful consultation, such as not consulting the experts who can show your plans up to be the corrupt dross they are: for the NHS review we are completely ignoring the medical profession. Many thanks for your support though, we will keep you updated on our consultation tactics and ideas.

Gordon is listening

Professor Darzi live webchat

The eminent and knowledgeable Professor Darzi has kindly spared us a few minutes of his time to answer a few questions; many thanks for taking the time to answer these questions, I am sure your NHS patients are missing you greatly as we speak, I say this despite the fact that he actually does very little clinical work these days as most of his time is spent working for the party:


Question from John in Bradford: Do you not think that the consultation process is a bit of sham given that it is virtually impossible for clinicians to attend, and that the public are being paid for their views?


Prof Darzi: How dare you suggest this, the consultation process is a genuine attempt by those of us working for the party to provide evidence for what we are about to do for the NHS, your suggestion is absurd and an insult to all of us who work so hard for the party and the party leader Gordon Brown.


Question from Gordon in Whitehall: How do you find to do so much good work in helping the public in so many different ways?


Prof Darzi: It isn't easy, that is for sure, however a mixture of hard work and dedication to the party do help be get through the gruelling 40 hour week. While the financial support from the party in the form of large brown envelopes does make things that little bit easier for me to manage.


Question from Patricia in Australia: Do you agree that you have a very hard job on your hands to improve the NHS, given that it arguably had its best year ever last year?


Prof Darzi: This is true Patricia, my, you speak like someone who really knows what they are talking about. It will be hard, but I am very skilled indeed and have every confidence in my ability to continue the efficient privatisation of the NHS with little stealth.


Question from Tony in Newcastle: Can you ask Gordon if I can have my old job back please Prof Darzi, I am ever so bored in my new job?


Prof Darzi: I am ever so sorry Tony, Gordon doesn't want to speak to you until you say that you were sorry for not keeping your promise about him taking over as the party leader.

Question from Mr Boots living in an offshore tax haven: Please may I have first dibs on a few of the juicy primary care contracts?

Prof Darzi: I can't make any promises, please send a blank cheque addressed to Gordon at the party headquarters and we will do our best.

Question from little Jimmy in Scunthorpe: I want to be a government stooge and microsurgeon just like you Professor Darzi, what advice can you give me?

Prof Darzi: It is very important to make friends in the right places Jimmy, never say 'No' and always make sure to bend over when asked, you can't go far wrong if you obey those two rules.

Many thanks Prof Darzi for such a wonderful set of answers, we really are close to running our of honours to give him, great work for the party. Professor Darzi may well have some more time to answer some of your questions, so please feel free to post any questions below that you feel need to be answered.

Please feedback your opinion

It would be much appreciated if you would feedback your opinion on this, as for our NHS review to be of any use, it must show that Prof Darzi and Gordon Brown are the most trusted members of the flora/fauna/establishment.

Be warned, we have informed several Labour party affiliated websites that they must vote for Darzi and Brown, so even if you vote against them, your vote will be meaningless. Also we reserve the right to track you down to your computer and use our new anti-terrorist legislation against you, if you choose to disrespect the party; it is only fair that we inform you of this, so that your 'choice' is genuine and fully informed.

Labour party conference, well done Alan!

It gives me great pleasure to write the first post in this ground breaking new blog; it is so special because it gives us, the politicians, a chance to be honest for once, with you, the electorate. It really has been a fantastic few days so far at the Labour party conference, the only let down has been that Neil Kinnock got in on the naked action with the pensioners instead of me. I do rather enjoy writing as opposed to speaking, it ensures that I can't get caught with my jaw hanging down around my ankles in between sentences.

One of the highlights of today was Alan Johnson's clever speech on health. I am quite amazed that many of you actually still fall for the same old New Labour clap trap, this time we're using the gimmick of the 'personal' NHS, it seems that we have run out of luck with the 'patient choice' gimmick, amazingly though it's working! The BBC seem happy enough to believe us, even though we have been destroying and privatising the NHS for the last ten years.

Alan told so many lies that I also burst out laughing, he said we'd be moving away from "top-down structural change" towards a "clinically led and locally driven"! Even Stalin didn't manage to create such a top down structure as we have at New Labour, the only driving down locally will be on the roads that we lay down from the centre. The 'deep clean' is also nothing more than a load of hot air, in reality we have helped spread bugs likes MRSA by cutting beds and forcing patients to be moved around between departments too quickly with our targets.

The biggest joke of all is that we are trying to privatise primary care by opening up loads of tacky walk in centres in Boots, it's a great way to make the Labour party money as loads of the companies who want a piece of the action are keen to donate to us. It will actually create a less personal and poorer quality service, but amazingly Alan managed to spin it as a more 'personal' service, excellent work indeed. The truth is that it is too expensive to pay for a decent health service, as we have wasted so much money elsewhere that there simply isn't enough to go around.

That's about it from me, I'm just grateful to you all for keeping the faith with New Labour even though we are dishonestly dismantling the NHS right in front of your eyes. It certainly will be more personal for you when you can't find a GP within ten miles because they are only located in supermarkets, or when you can't get to a hospital with your crushing chest pain because we've shut them all and replaced them with privately run portacabins. This is the NHS that we've been working towards for the last ten years, if this is what you want then please vote New Labour!