Imagine the uproar if a Tory minister proposed a “do-it-yourself” NHS?

Consider these two stories. In the first the government approves new proposals to overhaul hospital outpatient care. For once there isn’t even much of a pretence that this will improve healthcare. It’s simply a question of saving money.

Assuming the new proposals are implemented, many outpatients who had hitherto enjoyed (or endured) hospital appointments will be told to stay at home. Indeed they will be advised to “treat themselves”. What contact they have with a consultant will be of the “virtual” kind. Perhaps a quick telephone call if they are lucky. More likely, they will be told to download an app to their phone which will tell them how to manage their condition or affliction.

In other words, a DIY NHS. Or, if you prefer, some real privatisation. The NHS: contracted out to the patient. Patients will be expected, a government spokesman concedes, “to monitor and manage their own conditions“.

Imagine the uproar! The BBC and Channel 4 News would lead on this, the papers would pile in.