Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds is pleased to welcome Dr Phil Hammond to the stage, with his new tour Happy Birthday NHS? – a comedic show asking audiences for suggestions on improving health and social care, to be debated live with a humorous spin.
Nye Bevan’s beautiful baby is 70 this year, but will she make a tonne? A decade of austerity with a Brexit cherry on top has brought her to her knees. Do we just keep doing what we’re doing, or is it time for a radical rethink? We claim to love the NHS but then systematically abuse her by abusing ourselves. And nobody likes picking up the bill. Dr Phil looks back to the start of the NHS and forward to the future. Can we still afford universal high-quality care for all? Will technology save us, bankrupt us or kill us?
Phil Hammond is a doctor, journalist, broadcaster, campaigner and comedian. He qualified as a GP in 1991 and is currently working in a specialist NHS centre for children and adolescents with chronic fatigue syndrome/ME. Phil is also a presenter on BBC Radio Bristol and has been Private Eye’s medical correspondent since 1992, campaigning for patient empowerment, open data in healthcare and for the NHS to be honest and transparent about the harm it causes as well as the good it does. In 2012, he was shortlisted with Andrew Bousfield for the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Investigative Journalism for a Private Eye Special Report about the shocking treatment of NHS Whistleblowers. Phil has also won awards for broadcasting, popular health journalism, comedy and teaching.
Happy Birthday NHS? is at Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds for one night only, Tue 13 Nov at 7.30pm – come celebrate the NHS and laugh all your worries away. Or vice versa. Batteries not included.
Tickets are on sale at the Box Office, call 01284 769505, book online at www.theatreroyal.org/dr-phil-hammond or visit the theatre in person.
