Comrades!

Feel glory in the wonderful opportunity that central government has given you. Your inability to reach the required number of 'Amber' calls in the mandatory time has resulted in a new and innovative plan to allow intellectuals to shine.

We are to cut your budget by £1.6 million, thus allowing you to 'think smarter' in order to reach these same goals in time for next year's auditing.

As that cute white kitty says 'hang in there baby' for while some of the proletariat may see this as a 'punishment' rest assured that this is no such thing. By cutting your budget we will enable innovative practice to flourish. By placing this obstacle in the path of providing world class healthcare we will be 'evolutioning out' poor ideas and this burning of the forest of old ideas will enable new sprouts of innovative innovation to sprout sproutlike from the bed of innovation.

True, the valued, committed, diverse and hard-working staff of the organisation may suggest that the nineteen minute target to reach these 'Amber' calls is not based on any clinical or scientific evidence - however we leave it to LAS management to design some eye-catching and diverse posters explaining that it is the public's perception of the service that is more important than anything approaching clinical need.

May we suggest that any roadstaff that suffer a break in morale should be moved to East London where the constant influx of deeply sub-healthy and not-up-to-standard education patients will remind the staff that they are truly lucky to be working for such an innovative, forward thinking and diversely diverse organisation.

Those who complain about a lack of blankets and blood sugar machines should be shot as an example to the others.

We look forward to seeing the innovation that your staff create - might I suggest hiring a few new managers at £70k salaries a shot to facilitate the innovation?

Yours faithfully (and innovationingly),

The government.

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Seriously, we've just had our budget cut by £1.6 million (it was supposed to be £3 million but the fine was reduced after some begging negotiation) over our inability to hit the 'Amber 19' target. That is reaching a certain percentage of our 'Amber' calls in nineteen minutes or less. Again this target number is not based on any sort of, I dunno, evidence. Instead it is based around what the public demand.

Ho-hum. That'll help with the shortage of blankets, vehicles and other rather useful kit that I find missing from my ambulance whenever I start a shift.