Dept of Health: #JeremyHunt not AWOL. He’s been turned into an app

Rumours and questions abound currently about the whereabouts of Health Secretary Jeremy, following his apparent disappearance after it emerged that the Red Cross – a service normally active in developing nations and areas hit by war or natural disasters – has had to step in to rescue NHS hospitals and services from collapse.

But the mystery has now been solved.

In an anything but shocking press release, the Department of Health (DH) has announced that, contrary to rumour, Mr Hunt has not disappeared but has been converted into a handy Health Secretary app.

A DH spokesperson told the SKWAWKBOX,

We’ve reached a point where we’re no longer able to pretend that the NHS is collapsing because of unexpected demand, but we’re very proud that this hasn’t prevented us from continuing to cut funding and reduce services by calling it the Sustainability and Transformation Plan – the marketing bod got a very big bonus for that one, I can tell you!

We started the process of switching GP appointments to Skype chats years ago and are even turning the out of hours 111 service into an app so some ‘algorithms’ (a series of random answers really!) can tell sick people what’s wrong with them – let’s be honest, its guesses will be as good as the untrained call centre staff we’ve been using.

So it just made sense to convert Jeremy into an app as well. He’s already so short of depth and substance that it was easy to get him to fit into a smartphone.

The app comes equipped with a series of random platitudes and soundbites. It ignores you if you’re a medical professional and if anyone asks too hard a question it shuts down and refuses to reappear for an indefinite period.

It’s almost indistinguishable from the real thing, in fact probably even better. It’s paid for by private health ads, too, so Philip Hammond is already planning another tax cut with the savings.

If this pilot goes well, we expect to turn all doctors and nurses into apps and eventually all non-private patients. Life expectancy will be about the same as the average smartphone charge by the time we’re finished so it’s the logical way to go and really represents best value to non-taxpayers.

When asked for a comment on its new status, the Hunt app answered “We’ve increased spending every year!” before shutting down and failing to reappear.

Theresa May has also disappeared from public view during the crisis. Rumours she has vanished up Rupert Murdoch’s behind seem credible, but are unsubstantiated.

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