Yes, Minister.

Yesterday The Australian featured an article by former Labor senator John Black on the GP workforce issue as it is impacting on us here in the PM’s own electorate of Griffith. We are immensely grateful to him for generating interest in our little problem. The full article is HERE.

John drew an irresistible parallel with the Yes, Minister episode called The Compassionate Society (first screened in February 1981). In case you have forgotten, the story is centred around the new St Edward’s hospital which is staffed by 300 administrators but has no doctors, nurses, or – heaven forbid – patients.

Purely for your amusement, I offer the following snippets of dialogue from the episode.

Jim Hacker: "The National Health Service, Humphrey, is an advanced case of galloping bureaucracy."
Sir Humphrey: "Ooooh, certainly not galloping. A gentle canter at the most."

And …

Sir Humphrey: "Minister, you said you wanted the administration figures reduced, didn't you?"
Jim Hacker: "Yes."
Sir Humphrey: "So we reduced the figures."
Jim Hacker: "But only the figures, not the number of administrators."
Sir Humphrey: "Well of course not."
Jim Hacker: "Well that is not what I meant."
Sir Humphrey: "Well really Minister, one is not a mind-reader, is one? You said reduce the figures, so we reduced the figures."

Twenty-seven years down the track, and it still resonates ….