Frenetic Search by Minister uncovers 83,000 publicly paid NHS employees !

"NHS staff must encourage Healthy Lifestyles"

Friday 18th May 2012 - South Wales Echo

A shocked Minister has just discovered that NHS Wales employs over 83,000 employees - all paid for by our money - which is 2.5% of the total population of Wales. Along with this fact is the realisation that they're all involved in something to do with improving the health of the rest of us - shock, horror, probe ! Poor Leslie Griffiths - months of working at learning to be a Health and Social Services Minister - and then she finds all these colleagues who ( apparently ) play a part in our health and wellbeing. So now this highly paid trainee Minister of ours is urging all employees of the NHS to use their interactions with us - the long-suffering patients - to promote health ! Most NHS staff don't know who Leslie Griffiths is, let alone what her job is supposed to be, yet they are being driven to encourage us to achieve more healthier lifestyles ( beyond what they're already supposed to be doing to help us with our health problems, of course ). Obviously, she must have been shown a copy of the letter to the Echo from that other 'gem' of a leader, Tony Jewell, who claims that most of the population are living unhealthy lifestyles ( his survey claims ). NHS employees, encouraging healthier lifestyles - whatever next ?

Pardon me for falling about laughing, but most of the doctors and nursing staff I've known realised this remarkable part of their work years ago so, perhaps, the porters and maintenance staff will be given new scripts to recite to their patients, whilst wheeling them about or repairing their beds. Like the Royal College of Nursing, all nurses already know that a lot of them are going to be royally shafted ( once again ) over their pay and pension entitlements. Yes, that'll improve their morale and encourage them to do more for us, won't it ? The solution ? Blindingly obvious really, we'll all be even more reliant on our GPs ( assuming we can get an appointment ) and we'll all have to find more innovative ways of curing our ills. Perhaps more street stalls, full of witch doctors, medicine men, and miracle healers, will be cluttering up our streets, whilst the old man pushes his cart between them shouting "Bring out your dead".
Sorry to be cynical ( who me ? ) but isn't that what 'Care in the Community' is meant to be in future ??? R. W.