A Wetherspoons in every hospital? Oh, Britain, how could you?

Is it any wonder we are too silly to have a serious conversation about the NHS? It’s something health secretary Wes Streeting has just found out the hard way – with a toe-curling public consultation, writes Oliver Keens

The fact that a key consultation asking the Great British public how to fix the NHS has gone a bit weird and wonky shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. The consultation, run via a Change.org site, was intended to start a “national conversation” to find what we want from the government’s forthcoming 10-year health plan.

With an almost charmingly cute naivety, health secretary Wes Streeting launched the scheme by stating: “We feel really strongly that the best ideas aren’t going to come from politicians in Whitehall”.

Oh, we’ve got ideas, Wes! Ideas for rip-roaring lols, quality bants and top-tier s***-posting.

The consultation is just a day old and we’ve already had a suggestion that every hospital should have a Wetherspoons to raise morale. Another person floated replacing free milk in schools with Monster energy drinks. It was mooted in all caps that “DEPRESSION PEOPLE” should be sent to the crab-racing in Scarborough. And one legend thinks all doctors should be renamed Doctor Who, to save money on name badges.

Within hours of its launch there were hundreds of almost psychedelically stupid proposals for what the NHS needed – be they statues of Princess Di, more goose eggs, a fleet of limousines or new ambulance sirens that blare out healthy eating advice instead of the traditional “nee-naw, nee-naw”.

The fact that many were first made aware of this via a tweet by Wes Streeting – declining an idea for him to be shot out of a cannon for cash – says a lot about modern politicians and their slavish devotion to social media. Trying to form meaningful policy on a platform – Change.org – that resembles not much more than a slightly rarefied comments section is an inherently shallow thing to do.

But the hard, honest truth behind why a scheme like this was doomed to fail is that we’re simply a deeply silly country. Having “a conversation” with Britain is a bit like being violently held hostage in a novelty joke shop: amusing and utterly terrifying, all at once.

Britain is a ridiculous place. Ask us to name a scientific research vessel to map climate change and we’ll call it Boaty McBoatface. We have a genre of literary fiction known as “bonkbusters”. We not only elected Boris Johnson as our prime minister, he was electorally challenged for his seat in parliament by a man called Count Binface.

The Royal Court announced a new play on murderer Raoul Moat this week, a man who shot people under cover of woodland, but who Britain simultaneously made into lolsy legend because Gazza turned up to counsel him with a lager and some chicken.

You could legitimately damn these jokey comments as being more than “just a bit of fun”. But to some, they’re actively disrespectful.

The NHS is undeniably f***ed. Even the current health minister said yesterday that the NHS was suffering from “objectively the worst crisis in its history”. Every “hilarious” suggestion takes attention away from solving the problem. And if your loved one has just died as a result of mismanagement within the NHS, this banter is possibly just offensively grim.

You could also take the jaded view that consultations like this are folly, a way for a fresh government with a lovely big mandate to slowly realise that consulting is madness. But the tragedy is that there are some actually great suggestions contained within.

Anyone who’s ever been given a crutch or similar costly apparatus on the NHS, for example, is staggered to learn they seldom want them back. A suggestion by Stephanie Byott, titled “Return of crutches and other reusable items”, is well argued, entirely reasonable and has 251 upvotes to date.

But the fact that a suggestion to incorporate Daleks into the NHS gets hundreds more says a lot about where we are as a country. We clinically shy away from taking anything seriously. Having been a “great”, empiric country for hundreds of years, today we concertedly shun the sickness and burden of it all by being as gleefully inane and stupid as possible.

That’s all well and good, except we also need governing too. We’re an emollient, tolerant people at heart – just don’t ask us for our ideas.