Labour to eliminate NHS trolley waits

Acting on a £20 million report produced by a working party of the Prime Minister’s friends, Health Secretary Alan Milburn will announce today that he has ended at a stroke the scandal of patients waiting on hospital trolleys.

A Labour peer and former flatmate of the Prime Minister’s said: "This is a big boost for Britain and for British jobs." His Taiwan-based company is believed to have won the contract from the NHS to produce 3.89 million signs reading KEEP OFF THIS TROLLEY!.

Another of his companies, based in Eastern Europe, will train hospital doctors to fix two of the signs to each trolley. "Doubling up on the signs is the key," he said. "In trials with a single sign per trolley, some patients pretended they hadn’t seen it, or covered it up by lying on it."

Tony Blair, speaking from the other side of the world where he is waging the War Against Intolerance™ said: "This proves that we keep our promises, not like the Tories. There will be no return to boom and bust under this administration."

The Shadow Health Secretary, who cannot be named because nobody knows who he is, was less enthusiastic. "It is a national scandal," he said. "There is plenty of capacity for making these signs in our excellent home-grown industry. My cousin wasn’t even asked to quote for the job."

He then outlined a rival Conservative plan to control trolley waiting times with a pay-and-display system, limiting waits to a maximum of two hours. The scheme would be administered by a national team of Trolley Wardens, who would have the power to clamp or tow away patients who overstayed their time.

He denied government claims that this was a stealth tax, adding that the cost of one hour’s waiting would be redeemable against sugar-free beverages and wholemeal sandwiches in each hospital’s cafeteria.

Asked whether Disabled Parking Permits could be used on trolleys, he replied: "Don’t be ridiculous. We can’t have sick cripples cluttering up our hospitals."