After Dinner SpeakersPhil Hammond is a retired doctor, writer, speaker, broadcaster and possibly the only comedian to appear at a public inquiry.
He is Private Eye’s medical correspondent and broke the story of the Bristol heart scandal in 1992, which led to the largest public inquiry in British history 7 years later.
Phil worked as a GP for 20 years, alongside roles in sexual health and as a lecturer in medical communication at the Universities of Birmingham and Bristol.
He also spent 11 years in a specialist service supporting young people with severe fatigue conditions, including post-viral fatigue, ME and long Covid.
Comedy Doctor:
Phil Hammond has survived Have I Got News For You, The News Quiz, The Now Show, Ruby Wax and being reported to the General Medical Council by William Hague’s Press Secretary. He was also the only doctor to appear for the prosecution on Channel 4’s Doctors on Trial.
Brought up in Australia before a traumatic relocation to every school in Marlborough, Hammond qualified as a doctor in 1987 from Girton College, Cambridge University and St Thomas’ Hospital Medical School.
He became a GP in 1991 but first came into the public spotlight writing a column for The Independent and as half of Struck Off and Die, with Tony Gardner. They had five sell-out shows at the Edinburgh Fringe, were twice selected for the Perrier Pick of the Fringe and won Writers’ Guild and Silver Sony Awards when the show transformed into a Radio 4 series.
Broadcaster:
In 2002, Phil fronted 28 Minutes to Save the NHS on Radio 4, which he extended into a sell-out Edinburgh Fringe Show, 59 Minutes to Save the NHS, and further extended into a highly successful 60-date UK tour, 89 Minutes to Save the NHS.
He presented five series of Trust Me, I’m a Doctor on BBC 2, exposing wide variations in care across the NHS. He also co-wrote the sitcom Doctors and Nurses, which was broadcast on BBC 1 in 2004. A GP-based sitcom, Polyoaks, was commissioned by Radio 4.
Phil has written a number of books, including Medicine Balls, Trust Me, I’m (Still) a Doctor, Sex, Sleep or Scrabble? and Staying Alive.
