“The best ideas aren’t going to come from politicians in Whitehall!” It was a Monday morning in October, but Wes Streeting, Britain’s perkiest secretary of state, was full of zip. He had a plan to fix the National Health Service, using the creative spirit and drive of the British people. What could go wrong?

You could see where he was coming from, you really could. Anyone who’s sat in a hospital for any length of time has found themselves contemplating the ways in which it could be better organised. More than that, an outside set of eyes is often exactly what a struggling organisation needs. Where better to find that than among the great British public, the wellspring that poured forth creative geniuses from Isaac Newton to Isambard Kingdom Brunel? What fresh strokes of inspiration were waiting to burst forth from the happy breed that gave the world the steam engine and the telephone?

“Replace single beds in hospitals with bunk beds,” came one early response to the “Ideas For Change” website. “This will double the capacity of every hospital in the UK.” In case the meaning here wasn’t completely clear, “JP”, who had submitted the idea, had illustrated it with a picture of a bunk bed. Thanks, JP!

We are the nation that came up with the bouncing bomb, but also the nation that came up with the Dead Parrot Sketch

Perhaps JP was teasing. As, possibly, was the person who suggested free Monster energy drinks being given out in schools. And the person who suggested that children should be forced to volunteer in hospitals. Though they gave their name as “Rishi Sunak”, and the idea was no dafter than bringing back national service, so it may have been genuine.

Some ideas were familiar. There were the: “Stop wasting money on managers/diversity/rainbows” brigade. There were the people who wanted their local hospital reopened, or to be able to make a GP appointment even if they didn’t call at the precise second the surgery opened.

And some were both serious and sarcastic. “Obviously fax machines are cutting edge technology but there’s this new thing called email,” wrote one anonymous correspondent. “Apparently this enables instant communication from computer to phone. The NHS should try it instead of sending faxes and snail mail appointment letters that arrive after the appointment.”

There were of course the people convinced that foreigners are coming to Britain simply to break their legs and get free treatment. “Charge non-British for treatment with a card reader at the end of the bed,” was one of the more hard-line suggestions.

But we shouldn’t get carried away with the idea that Brits hate foreigners. Or rather, we should understand it in the context that Brits hate other Brits, too. “A&E needs a ‘Go Home man’,” wrote a man whose recent visit to Casualty had left him convinced that most of the people in the queue could best be dealt with by a grumpy member of staff telling them to sod off. It seemed probable that he would be willing to do the job himself. “Someone with some authority needs to stand up to these people!”

He was very far from alone. “Award stupidity with a bill,” said someone else. “If you need medical assistance due to consuming so much alcohol that you need your stomach pumped for example then you pay for it.” Emergency treatment is one of those irregular verbs: he is wildly irresponsible, you should take a bit more care, I quite reasonably climbed onto the roof in a gale to adjust my TV aerial.

NHS staff didn’t escape criticism. “Maximum BMI for nurses. They should be leading by example,” wrote someone who very clearly had a particular person in mind. So too, we must assume, did the person who suggested: “Harness the passive aggressive energy exuded by all GP receptionists and use it to power up to 50 percent of the electricity needed by the NHS.”

The line between genius an idiocy is thin. On which side of it does “Turn the heating down by one degree” sit? Is it the same side as “You should be able to buy individual cigarettes in shops” or the suggestion of simply putting Tony Blair in charge?

Almost certainly not, though, the same side as the suggestion “Replace ambulance sirens with healthy eating advice.” As Streeting may be realising, we are the nation that came up with the bouncing bomb, but also the nation that came up with the Dead Parrot Sketch.