Your Humble Servant: electioneering

To: Don Wise, chief executive

From: Paul Servant, assistant chief executive

Re: A future fair for all

The election year business plan, Ambling to Average, has proved to be perfectly pitched. We have survived another election campaign with no one promising to save or close us. Our even-handed approach meant politicians from all parties were given equal opportunity to spread MRSA around the place when they visited. Quite frankly MRSA was probably the most benign thing they could spread.

We got through a couple of tricky situations when we had to discuss policy with them. The Tory candidate got quite upset when we showed him the two wards that would close if he got elected. We explained they were only there to treat patients faster to meet government targets but would no longer be necessary once targets were abolished. The good news, though, was that we intend to convert them into a “big society” meeting room for all his constituents to come and manage the hospital from.

We forgot our Lib Dem candidate was turning up and so only a junior member of the management team was there to greet him. Our manager skilfully avoided getting into the debate about squaring their private care promise to patients unhappy with their NHS care while restricting the ability of private providers to pitch for NHS business. He then blew it by getting into a row as to which of his colleagues should be sacked to reduce bureaucracy.

Our Labour MP was all smiles running round pointing out all the new things that had been built and refurbished in the last 10 years. We managed to gloss over how we won’t finish paying for them for 30 years, or approximately 17 reorganisations from now.

Anyway, enough even-handedness. We’ve never had it so good in the NHS and I remember the dying and suffering from 18 years of neglect and underfunding before 1997. Never again! Things can only get better…(whoops!)