I received this book as an ARC through NetGalley.

The book follows "John" but that might not even be his real name as he has forgotten his name and his suffering general memory loss after being pulled out of a river, saved from drowning. He doesn't know how he got into the river. Was he pushed or did he fall? John ends up at Terminal Five hospital where people who have no fixed abode or not full medical notes i.e. can't remember their name end up.
The management team of Terminal Five are trying to shake up the future of the NHS by every means necessary to save money and to make money.
This story follows John, and his fellow patients navigating through Terminal Five and how management what the NHS to look like moving forward.

The book is funny but also makes you sit and think. The writing is good and kept me entertained and wanting to keep reading.

Weird, strange, and somewhat reminiscent of Catch-22 (which admittedly I have never actually finished). I read the majority of this the day after getting my wisdom teeth removed and at times it felt like I was back under anesthesia all over again. Perhaps this is just recency bias but I absolutely see aspects of Severance (the TV show) in this. The blind worship of rules and regulations. The main characters internal conflict: do I want to simply escape or do I want to learn more about this broken system and fix it? The feeling that even those in charge of the main character are too being squeezed by the hand of someone higher up than them. Everyone is trapped in the broken system.

I thought the earlier half of the book was a bit on the nose (one doctor openly monologues about her frustrations with the healthcare system and how she would want to fix it) but things really took a turn around page 70 and I started to tear through it. The ending was strange? It didn't tie up the loose ends that I thought it would and I would have preferred a bit more meat in the final chapter, but I'm not unsatisfied by the book and would definitely recommend it to friends.

Thoroughly enjoyable tale of John who is rescued by paramedics from a canal. John has no immediate memory of who he is but through snippets we find out some of his backstory. His recovery is set out in an alternate NHS setting where plans are afoot for a revamp of medical care including a geriatric ward sponsored by Specsavers and self diagnosis negating the need for doctors.
This was a funny satirical look at what ‘could’ happen to our dear old institution if it’s not saved from its current state of affairs.
The dialogue was really witty and I had plenty of suspicions around how the story was going to pan out and I am pleased to say they were all wrong!
A gem of a book!

This honestly felt like a fever-dream. I can't even be 100% sure what I just read but I know I had a good time throughout! It was wacky and unique and well written. The author obviously had a lot of fun with this and really thought about the new ideas they brought into the book. If you're after something a bit bonkers, go for it!

Not the sort of book that I would normally read. More than anything else, it made me think. /what would it be like if you woke up one day and didn’t know your name or anything about yourself.
The hospital procedures were scary, amusing at times and with a cast of other characters, sometimes really sad.

Thanks to Netgalley and The Book Guild for providing me with an Advance Reader's Copy in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

As someone who has worked for the NHS for 25 years there is much of this book that although funny sadly rings true, I can only hope it never becomes like this, great book, funny and sad sometimes at the same time