Whitehall: There has been widespread relief around the UK after reports that the deepening staffing crisis in the NHS has been averted after tens of thousands of nurses were found stuffed down the back of a sofa in a Whitehall common room this morning.

The NHS had somehow managed to lose 33,500 nurses  in 2017 along with the sky remote and a set of car keys.

“They’re always in the last place you look.” A spokesman for the government told The Rochdale Herald.

“We knew they had to be around here somewhere. You can’t just lose 33,500 nurses. It took a concerted effort to find them, we had to check between the seats in the car and all of our jacket pockets before Graham suggested they might have fallen between the cushions on the sofa.”

“We’ve also managed to sort out the deficit too. We found fourteen billion pounds in loose change, a set of car keys for one of John Prescott’s Jags and Shergar. It’s been a good morning.”

A nurse told reporters: “I’m just glad that we’ve all been found. It’s been a tough few months what with overcrowding in hospitals, huge queues in A&E and being stuck down the back of an old chesterfield sofa with a load of old dog toys and staff nurses.”

“We’re all chomping at the bit and really looking forward to getting back to work. Is Jeremy Hunt still in charge?”

Data published by the NHS on Wednesday shows that the NHS lost 3,000 more nurses in 2017 than they found.

 

Quentin D Fortesqueue is a founding editor of The Rochdale Herald. Part time amateur narcissist and full time satirist Quentin is never happier than when playing his lute and drinking a full bodied Bordeaux. He rarely plays the lute and never gets to drink Bordeaux.