The Complete Yes Minister

Brain Baker, General Secretary of the Confederation of Administrative Unions, relaxing after a successful meeting of his National Executive Committee (Reproduced by kind permission of his grandson)

[Hacker’s diary continues – Ed.]

March 25th

Today I paid an official visit to St Edward’s Hospital. It was a real eye-opener.

The Welcoming Committee – I use the term in the very broadest sense, because I can hardly imagine a group of people who were less welcoming – were lined up on the steps.

I met Mrs Rogers, the Chief Administrator, and an appalling Glaswegian called Billy Fraser who rejoices in the title of Chairman of the Joint Shop Stewards Negotiating Committee. Mrs Rogers was about forty-five. Very slim, dark hair with a grey streak – a very handsome Hampstead lady who speaks with marbles in her mouth.

‘How very nice to meet you,’ I said to Fraser, offering to shake his hand.

‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ he snarled.

I was shown several empty wards, several administrative offices that were veritable hives of activity, and finally a huge deserted dusty operating theatre suite. I enquired about the cost of it. Mrs Rogers informed me that, together with Radiotherapy and Intensive Care, it cost two and a quarter million pounds.

I asked her if she was not horrified that the place was not in use.

‘No,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Very good thing in some ways. Prolongs its life. Cuts down running costs.’

‘But there are no patients,’ I reminded her.

She agreed. ‘Nonetheless,’ she added, ‘the essential work of the hospital has to go on.’

‘I thought the patients were the essential work of the hospital.’

‘Running an organisation of five hundred people is a big job, Minister,’ said Mrs Rogers, beginning to sound impatient with me.

‘Yes,’ I spluttered, ‘but if they weren’t here they wouldn’t be here.’

‘What?’

Obviously she wasn’t getting my drift. She has a completely closed mind.

I decided that it was time to be decisive. I told her that this situation could not continue. Either she got patients into the hospital, or I closed it.

She started wittering. ‘Yes, well, Minister, in the course of time I’m sure . . .’

‘Not in the course of time,’ I said. ‘Now. We will get rid of three hundred of your people and use the savings to pay for some doctors and nurses so that we can get some patients in.’

Billy Fraser then started to put in his two penn’orth.

‘Look here,’ he began, ‘without those two hundred people this hospital just wouldn’t function.’

‘Do you think it’s functioning now?’ I enquired.

Mrs Rogers was unshakeable in her self-righteousness. ‘It is one of the best-run hospitals in the country,’ she said. ‘It’s up for the Florence Nightingale award.’

I asked what that was, pray.

‘It’s won,’ she told me proudly, ‘by the most hygienic hospital in the Region.’

I asked God silently to give me strength. Then I told her that I’d said my last word and that three hundred staff must go, doctors and nurses hired, and patients admitted.

‘You mean, three hundred jobs lost?’ Billy Fraser’s razor-sharp brain had finally got the point.

Mrs Rogers had already got the point. But Mrs Rogers clearly felt that this hospital had no need of patients. She said that in any case they couldn’t do any serious surgery with just a skeleton medical staff. I told her that I didn’t care whether or not she did serious surgery – she could do nothing but varicose veins, hernias and piles for all I cared. But something must be done.

‘Do you mean three hundred jobs lost,’ said Billy Fraser angrily, still apparently seeking elucidation of the simple point everybody else had grasped ten minutes ago.

I spelt it out to him. ‘Yes I do, Mr Fraser,’ I replied. ‘A hospital is not a source of employment, it is a place to heal the sick.’

He was livid. His horrible wispy beard was covered in spittle as he started to shout abuse at me, his little pink eyes blazing with class hatred and alcohol. ‘It’s a source of employment for my members,’ he yelled. ‘You want to put them out of work, do you, you bastard?’ he screamed. ‘Is that what you call a compassionate society?’

I was proud of myself. I stayed calm. ‘Yes,’ I answered coolly. ‘I’d rather be compassionate to the patients than to your members.’

‘We’ll come out on strike,’ he yelled.

I couldn’t believe my eyes or ears. I was utterly delighted with that threat. I laughed in his face.

‘Fine,’ I said happily. ‘Do that. What does it matter? Who can you harm? Please, do go on strike, the sooner the better. And take all those administrators with you,’ I added, waving in the direction of the good Mrs Rogers. ‘Then we won’t have to pay you.’

Bernard and I left the battlefield of St Edward’s Hospital, I felt, as the undisputed victors of the day.