Your pal the skipper is usually in rude health, but spare a thought for those less fortunate souls who have been forced to spend time over Christmas and the New Year in accident and emergency waiting rooms up and down the country.

After four years of austerity, during which time the NHS has theoretically been protected from cuts – as long as you don’t take inflation into account – but not from meddling politicians, our health service has had to report the worst waiting times in a decade.

At no time in the last ten years have more patients had to wait over four hours to be admitted to a ward. A damning statistic.

Meanwhile, in hospitals across England, ‘major incidents’ have been declared, as beds and waiting areas fill up, and staff struggle to cope with patient numbers.

Luckily for us, the staff at the Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust have so far managed to cope with the numbers of ill and injured, and in the last week 89.8% of patients were seen on time, although over the Tamar at Derriford they have had to declare an ‘internal incident’.

And while our hospitals may just about be struggling to cope, that’s cold comfort if you can’t get to them: a grim prospect which was close to becoming a reality just after Christmas as the South West Ambulance Service was considered declaring a major incident due to the number of 999 and 111 calls.

It is worth bearing in mind, as you spend the seventh hour queuing for an overworked locum to examine your broken arm, that this waiting is rarely the fault of the harried hospital staff who work around the clock to keep this shattered system running.

Instead, perhaps it would be more helpful to turn your eyes to the government who, five years ago, promised no top down restructuring of the NHS.