If Phil Hammond sails close to the wind he does so with what he himself would describe as a mask of relaxed confidence.

This is a family doctor with a shamelessly slick bedside manner and a wealth of stories, almost none of which can be repeated in a family newspaper.

Suffice to say we got TV doc and Private Eye columnist Hammond in full stand-up mode delivering stories about patients with ketchup bottles, turnips and even light bulbs where they really shouldn’t be.

Then there were the horror stories from his hapless early years in A&E and maternity.

A time when he was known as Dr Ten Thumbs and displayed the kind of sewing skills that routinely rearranged people’s anatomy and, on one notable occasion, left a man with a surgical glove attached to his head.

The Rude Health Show is classic knockabout medical banter but it also has a serious side - to expose the inadequacies of the NHS and to try and empower patients and doctors to stand up for their rights.

Hammond points out that statistically we are 177,000 times more likely to be damaged by the health service than win the lottery.

It’s a sobering thought.