"There’s good news for anyone lying on a stretcher waiting for admission to A&E, who has been held in a queue for a hip operation or is pulling their hair out simply trying to book a GP appointment for a worrying pain down their left side. There may be no doctor to see you, but you may get to see a diversity officer instead. NHS England is proposing to set up three new departments, involving an extra 244 new posts. There will be an “Equality, Diversity and Inclusion” department, one called “People and Culture” and another called “People and Communities”.

In other words, the NHS may often disappoint its patients, but at least in future they should all be equally disappointed, with all 57 ethnic varieties and 100 or so different genders ending up waiting just as long for treatment as each other."