Audit Scotland, the people who count the bawbees spent on public services, have come to the stunningly obvious conclusion that it is cheaper for patients not to have an overnight stay in our hospitals. Get them in for treatment and send them home the same day.

Day surgery is an increasingly popular option. Audit Scotland says the system can be extended to save a further £8 million a year. It costs £237 per night to have a patient stay over.

The benefits are manifold. It is a more efficient use of NHS resources.

Fewer nurses have to work night shift and can be home to make their man's tea.

It is good news for patients who don't have to eat hospital food. Not having B&B at the local infirmary means they have less chance of catching MRSA. They get home to their own beds.

The civil servants at the Scottish government have researched the issue thoroughly, including producing a report on "Understanding the patient pathway". They concluded that: "A key step to identifying improvements in day-case rates is to identify improvements to the patient pathway.

"Health Boards should benchmark against good practice patient pathways for each specialty."

You may conclude that much more than £8m of NHS money could be saved by not having people sitting around writing reports about benchmarking patient pathways. But that is another issue.

At the moment, 68% of operations are conducted on a same-day basis. The present target is to increase this to 83%. But, as any NHS accountant will tell you, that still leaves 17% of patients treating hospitals like hotels.

The government is examining "aspirational targets" and "advisory stretch goals" for such day-surgery procedures as varicose-vein removal, bunions and correction of bat ears (sticky-out lugs in humans, not the little furry flying fellows). Also on the away-day menu are haemorrhoidectomy, circumcision, and orchiopexy.

Orchiopexy, as you probably know, is the surgical freeing of an undescended testicle. "That's you fixed, son, just go home and hang loose."

If interventions on such tender parts of the anatomy can be concluded in a day, there must be scope for extending the system to other operations, although we should not include open heart surgery in the list.

The emphasis will be on getting people in and out as quickly as possible. To this end, patients may be required to perform some of the finishing touches themselves.

Self-suturing may be an option - a kind of Stitch-As-You-Go, saving valuable time as surgeons get on with the next case.

Patients can push their own drip-stands up to the nearest bus stop. You will notice I say bus stop. Most hospitals are handily placed for perfectly good public transport services.

For far too long, NHS patients have been using ambulances like taxis.

You probably don't know this, but for the cost of buying one ambulance, three NHS administration executives could be provided with a decent mid-range company car.

With pressures such as they are on health service budgets, patients should consider carrying out simple procedures at home on a DIY basis.

It can be done just like in those old western movies.

A bullet wound? A stray arrow from a passing party of renegades? These are common Glasgow injuries that can easily be sorted without becoming a burden on the NHS.

The patient is partially sedated with a few slugs of moonshine. A stick is placed between the teeth to prevent unseemly screaming. The designated amateur surgeon also has a slug of moonshine, which is also used to sterilise the Bowie knife with which the designated amateur surgeon will whittle away at the patient's flesh.

When the bullet or arrow is removed, the Bowie knife is made red-hot over a naked flame and is used to cauterise the wound. It worked for John Wayne.

Everyday implements can be pressed into service for minor ops. A Stanley knife and a chopping board are all you really need (apart from a shot of moonshine) for a circumcision. It is recommended that you practice first on a salami.

A half-decent wine corkscrew could have those haemorrhoids out in a trice.

You may recall a BBC Two documentary about surgeons in Kiev who use Bosch PSR960 drills (as sold by Tesco for £30 to DIY enthusiasts) to drill holes through patients' skulls. The equivalent bit of kit used in UK hospitals comes in at £30,000. The availability and the low price of this drill makes brain surgery at home a reasonable option, saving the NHS untold millions of pounds.

Apparently, the hand-book for the Bosch PSR960 drill does not include instructions on how to carry out even such basic procedures as trepanning. You will have to phone NHS Direct to talk you through it.

These days, of course, you should be able to find a video on YouTube, or websites with detailed descriptions on how to heal yourself.

For those of you not online, I think I have an old copy of the Ladybird Book Of Simple Surgery around somewhere, which might come in handy.

I WOULD have more confidence in this get-the-patients-out-quick revolution were it not for the name of the chap at Audit Scotland who is in charge of the exercise. He is a Mr Nick Hex. A hex is, as you know, an evil spell, a curse, something which brings bad luck.

I have long been a student of appropriate or inappropriate names. Like Shawn Adolf, one of the alleged American fascist rednecks allegedly intent on preventing by force of alleged arms Barack Obama's effort to become the first black president of the USA.

Or Mr Charles Bean, economist and deputy governor of the bank of England, whose full name is really Mr Charles Bean-Counter.

Or the Edinburgh amenity group that is normally to be found defending listed buildings or attacking modern carbuncle architecture, but which entered into a controversial social issue by stating that what the capital needed was a restoration of a tolerance zone for prostitution.

The name of this civic trust which embroiled itself in matters of a carnal nature is the Cockburn Association.

But when it comes to names, the winner by a long way this week is Sarah Palin, the woman who may be a John McCain failed heartbeat away from being president of the USA.

Palin has two boys. One is named Track and the other Trig. Which I find almost as worrying as her enthusiastic membership of the National Rifle Association.

I AM told that Gordon Brown has been known to read this column. Probably to find out where he is going wrong. Last week, I described the Scotland Office in London as the last, outdated outpost of colonialism.

It was announced a few days later that the post of secretary of state for Scotland is to be abolished. Which is a good result.

If you're reading this, prime minister, what I'd like this week is world peace and an end to hunger. By Wednesday would be fine.