Funny but so true, It was decided in the eighties to privatize and the result was that much of the technical expertise that was present in various sectors was lost or outsourced. The government then relied on private consultants who sole purpose seemed to be to screw the government for as much as they could and often left the government with systems that overran the original cost and often never worked and had to be abandoned.
It's definitely funny but so true That actually happens bungling idiot not so they have millions in many accounts that's why no operations or appointments sess pit of Money
RIP John Fortunę and John Bird: comic genius's both. This hilarious sketch is horribly prescient given the current shambles in the NHS, Border Force, railways, postal service ad infinitum....
Art imitating reality. The Establishment dorks propagating the "clap for the NHS" nonsense should be force fed this satire in a padded cell 24/7 to understand how nothing about the crappy NHS has changed, and that in 2023, it might well kill you before it has time to cure. Here is one show I really miss. RIP the two of you legends.
The Observer reports, today in Jan 2023, the NHS regions are suggesting with,posters on display that patients pay for the treatment or tests they urgently want instead of hanging around on a months long waiting list…effectively a 2 tier NHS.
As someone who worked in the Civil Service with computers commissioned by managers and ministers who would struggle to grasp the concept of "Pong", from IT consultants who had no interest at all in what the systems were to be used for, without any consultation with the poor saps who'd have to try to do their jobs with the wretched systems, I can say this is absolutely spot on. There was only one system I ever used that worked properly and that was one where the managers for that area of work had all done the job themselces and told the IT people exactly what was required and that they wouldn't sign it off until it did that. The Civil Service is in the poor state it's in because it is run by managers who were promoted beyond their levels of competence , answerable to ministers who don't know or care what about anything other than their careers, commissioning work from private companies who only see the chance to make some easy money.
It's 2023 and this sketch is as relevant today as it was in 2004. Nothing has changed with the same government clowns ,civil servants and NHS managers totally incapable in running anything. RIP John Bird and John Fortune
Such a prophetic sketch. I went for a pre-operation chat in January 2022, which duplicated almost exactly the information I had entered online in November. I asked why, and the nurse had to say that the information I had entered (on one computer system) couldn't be transferred to the system used by Sheffield Hospitals.
I was told, many years ago by some one in the know, that in order to win a bid for the contract for a government IT project, you needed to have previously won a bid for a government IT project. Which explains why the company that fucked up the last government IT project gets awarded the contract to fuck up the next government IT project.
I worked in the NHS for thirty years. I recall wards being closed, a&e departments being shut down, streamlining the system, as we had to save six million pounds immediately. There was a massive CIP (cost improvement plan),. They closed my ward and sold it privately to save three hundred thousand. As I was then a ward manager without a ward, they dumped me into a imaginary job to liaise on a project to computerise patient records. The project lasted a year and the private sector company, Oasis, was paid three million pounds to deliver a useless system that couldn't do the most basic functions. It was scrapped after eight months. Three million shovelled into the drain. The wards are still closed.
So good to hear from someone who experienced the fatuous policies of a Tory government that probably loathed the concept of a national health system, for all its faults.
Two of the pioneers of modern satire a. A generation which took on the establishment with TW3 in 1963 and are still relevant sixty years later. RIP John & John.
Bird and Fortune were not involved with That Was The Week That Was but were together on the two:sequel series after the 1964 General Election, Not So Much a Programme, More A Way of Life and an easier to remember title BBC3 (no connection with the digital channel). Both only had one season each in 1964 and 1965. These satirised the Harold Wilson admin, which Labour had only a wafer thin majority T he trouble prone McMillan Douglas-Home admins which were satire gold dust had even replaced by a Labour government which called an election in 1966 in order to boost their majority Of course Wilson was the target of satirists eventually!
2 documentaries ''The Great NHS Heist'' ( Dr Bob Gill ) & ''The Dirty War on the NHS'' ( John Pilger ) - plus the 2 minute 39 second movie clip ''bulworth'' by Raven Van.
THERE YOU GO THIS WAS BROADCAST IN OCTOBER 2004................AND IT JUST SOUNDS LIKE THE TORY GOVERNMENT OF TODAY JANUARY 2023...............WOW THESE TWO GUYS WERE SO AHEAD OF THE TIME and us, well............ we were so blinkered we just laughed at it at the time, government ministers would never come across like this would they...? oh YES they would and do so daily in our 2023 lives.
Channel 4, Saturday evening. about twenty past seven instead of Noel Edmonds on the other side. Funnily enough I don't think about all the politics, I just think about their partnership. Sorely missed.
Their like will never be seen again. Like all good Satire, and impersonating, especialy of Political targets, they were slyly and deliberatly removed from our screens. Now these same types, of political idiots prevail unchallenged , which is desperately needed. It's something the powerful and wealthy, have always feared the most, throughout history,---RIDICULE, a powerful weapon
