PHIL Hammond began his medical training because he wanted to spend six years wearing a white coat and chasing after nurses.

He left it with a growing sense of disillusion about the NHS and the hope that, through his unique comedy act, he might be able to give vent to his anger about some of the worst privations of the service.

"I started off the act as an angry, ranting junior doctor," Phil, 41, explained.

"It was cathartic."

Phil's angry rants went down so well with his audiences he travelled up to the Edinburgh Festival where, amid awards and acclaim, he landed a Radio Four series.

Then, a chance meeting in the BBC toilets with Private Eye editor Ian Hislop led to him being offered a column in the satirical magazine -- a column which gave Phil a platform to blow the whistle on one of the biggest ever health service scandals.

Phil said: "I started writing the Private Eye column in 1992 and mainly focused on the working conditions of junior doctors.

"At the time I was working in Bristol and had a lot of friends working on the heart ward of the Royal Infirmary.

"Everyone I asked said they wouldn't send their own kids there and I felt, if people were saying that in private, it needed to be investigated."

In truth, the ward was nicknamed "the departure lounge" and a subsequent public inquiry, launched as a result of Phil's allegations, discovered 29 babies and toddlers had died following paediatric heart surgery carried out there.

Phil said: "I first wrote about Bristol in 1992 but, because it was in Private Eye, people felt they could just ignore it and the heart surgery carried on.

"It later emerged rumours had been circulating about Bristol for a while, but nobody knew quite what to do about it."

Worryingly, Phil is convinced this silence from the authorities exists throughout the NHS.

He said: "Bristol feels hard done by because of the nature of funding and staffing within the NHS.

"There are examples of cock-ups in every speciality up and down the country. Some doctors do 50 operations every year and some just do a couple.

"It's not the fault of the individuals. Most doctors go to work wanting to do a good job.

"It's just that the NHS has developed in this very hotch-potch way."

Phil's early idealism about being able to change the service through comedy has now faded into a more realistic aim of giving politicians a wake-up call -- as well as providing a much-needed laughter tonic for hard-worked NHS staff.

He has now quit his part-time work as a doctor to concentrate on his forthcoming comedy tour, as well as regular appearances on BBC 2's Have I Got News for You.

He considers himself lucky to have that option.

"I miss medicine, but I wouldn't want to work in the NHS full time.

"I'd be absolutely knackered. The stress of it worries me more than anything."

However, determined to inject humour back into hospitals, Phil has written a sitcom called Doctors and Nurses, which is due to be broadcast on BBC 1 later this year.

You can catch Phil's comedy show, 89 Minutes to Save the NHS, at the Burnley Mechanics on June 13. For tickets call (01282) 664400.