Patricia Hewitt has admitted that she thinks that some doctors are overpaid but saved her harshest criticism for the nation’s proctologists. Hewitt condemned them for being ostentatious in front of their patients. She told a medical conference in Hull that bottom doctors ‘enter the surgery with fingers covered in bling where once there was once only a dab or two of lubricating gel.’

The health secretary was responding to a case currently going through the High Court in which Mr. Douglas Ripenhole (43) is suing his local health authority after his proctologist left him requiring surgery. The doctor refused to remove his rings before a routine inspection. Mr. Ripenhole told the court how he had to endure months of painful medical work to repair the damage. Asked by the judge how he had managed to pay for such an expensive procedure, Mr. Ripenhole said: ‘Well I had a deal with the doctors that they could keep anything they could remove. I believe they recovered two Rolex watches.’

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