Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, is allowing his face to be used in order to reduce hospital waiting lists by having it played on a continuous loop on televisions at the foot of patient’s beds.*
The loops, which the patients are unable to turn off, can only be escaped if patients pay a fee to have control of the television or if they discharge themselves.
In presenting the new policy, Mr Lansley explained:
We are hoping the sight of my face continuously talking rubbish all day will encourage patients to spend as little time as possible in hospital, thereby freeing up more beds and reducing waiting lists.
There is already evidence the plans are working with patients desperately trying to escape his face by discharging themselves, sometimes within hours of serious operations.
Mr Lansley denied the policy was akin to torture by explaining that whereas torture victims are unable to escape their fate, hospital patients are free and indeed welcome at any time to discharge themselves and go home:
Research has shown that continuous exposure to my face can speed up recovery times remarkably and doctors have been surprised how quickly patients are telling them they have recovered and are well enough to go home.
The success of the scheme means that the government is considering using faces from other ministries in similar institutions such as prisons and schools. A government spokesperson explained:
Imagine how much reoffending rates could be reduced if prisoners had to serve their time in prison having to endure non-stop exposure to Theresa May’s face whittering on about cats or how school attendance and indeed exam results could be improved if, instead of a thousand lines, pupils were threatened with having to watch a thousand Michael Gove speeches whenever they stepped out of line.
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* this is not satire – it is in fact true
Please feel free to comment – you don’t have to register and I’m extremely minimal with the moderating – so fire away:
Barbs said:
I fear the Theresa May one would fail as she has an excellent imagination and tells entertaining fairy tales. In fact if she was on for hours prisoners could end up hearing enough tales to rival the brothers grim ;D
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Tom Pride said:
That’s true. The one about the cat and the immigrant was particularly imaginative. She’s good at jokes too. How about this one:
“Knock Knock.”
“Come in.”
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syzygysue said:
This is carrying punitive policies too far! Athough, I think it might work in making me discharge myself 😦
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