Now where on earth was that advertisement? The Scottish executive is appointing somebody dubbed a “good news czar” to spin positive stories about the health service to people who work in the sector.

I could do that job, particularly for a salary of £57,000, but I’m not standing by the telephone. You probably need more crony credentials than I possess. It’s strange that almost a century after our ancestors sang Lloyd George Knew My Father, who you know is still often far more important than what you can do. This post will be earmarked for somebody already in the inner sanctum. Plus ça change.

However, despite my reservations about who will get the job (and despite my natural inclination to pour scorn on the hideous notion of yet another “czar”) I find myself not viscerally opposed to the idea that those who work in the health service should hear something nice about it every now and again.

Of course, in one way it is ridiculous that when the executive already has more press officers (43) than ministers and deputy ministers (19), we should be asked to put up with yet another publicly funded communications officer.

It is not ridiculous, however, to link sinking health service morale to the bad publicity surrounding all National Health Service departments. If we have learnt anything from businessmen such as Sir Alan Sugar it is that morale is as important a factor as pay when assessing production outcomes. In the NHS, as in a widget factory, how the workforce feels has a direct effect on what the workforce does and how it does it.

In recent months my family has had recourse to many parts of the health service. Some bits are rotten. I can also attest to the fact that if internal communications between managers and staff are comparable to external communications between staff and patients’ families, they are, currently, a joke.

Over the past few months we have repeated the story of my mother-in-law to a stream of doctors and nurses. They religiously take down what we say but never, ever, communicate any of it to each other. Yet other parts of the NHS turn out to be extraordinarily efficient, with staff passing on information almost before you have finished speaking. The latter is a good news story that could usefully be relayed round the service if only to show that things can work if NHS staff put their minds to it.

But rather than any notion of improving NHS delivery I suspect that the main reason behind the appointment of an internal good news czar is that working in the health service is proving an ever more unattractive option.

As the ethos of public service becomes more unalluring, so the health service finds it increasingly difficult not only to attract recruits but to retain staff. For years, for example, Scotland has had a shortage of cancer doctors, a problem that came to a head in 2001 when four cancer specialists left the Beatson, one of our flagship cancer centres. Working conditions loomed large among the reasons for leaving.

Recently we learnt that 29% of Scotland’s student nurses quit their courses, many citing poor experience on wards and on clinical placements, which seemed to confirm the NHS as an unattractive environment in which to plan a career. Given that training NHS staff costs a small fortune — £11,500 to train a nurse even to basic level — this represents a huge waste of resources. If the NHS felt better about itself, perhaps staff would feel it worth their while staying.

However, the good news czar will be a waste of space if the job turns out to be simply reading out Scottish executive press releases at staff meetings. What is needed in the NHS is somebody not so much to disseminate good news internally as to disseminate balanced news.

If you speak to NHS employees you find them as disheartened by tabloid exposés as with the silly, hubristic executive rebuttals. They want praise where praise is due but they do not want to be told that a service they know is creaking at the knees is “the envy of the world”.

Will a good news czar, particularly one who depends financially on the executive, manage to bring some real independence, gravitas and integrity to the job? Of that I’m not sure.

But before we condemn this seemingly batty post out of hand we should remember that how NHS staff feel about the institution they serve dictates how they treat us as service users.

I’ve seen too many disenchanted nurses over the past few months to feel there is any doubt about that. Of course, if the NHS was working properly there would be no need for either internal czars or external press officers at all. But since this is not the case I can accept that NHS staff do need to be told that they are part of an organisation of which they can, on occasion, be proud.

If this is done properly we may all feel the benefit. It is certainly sad that a czar is required to cheer NHS employees along, but in among all the other quangocrats leeching away taxpayers’ money, I can think of many whose jobs I resent more.

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