The NHS and Doctor Who have much in common, as long-running national institutions committed to decent moral values.  

Both have seen much-loved figures struggle to cope with budget cuts and wonky backdrops over the decades, and both were revived by massive injections of cash in the noughties.

So End Game was thrilled to see these two titans of public life collide in the studios of BBC’s ultra-soft “current affairs” programme, The One Show.

A recent broadcast carried an item on the 50the anniversary of Doctor Who, and another with Sir Bruce Keogh explaining how whatever it was he was up to, he wasn’t creating a two-tier accident and emergency system.

However it was when a disco-dancing Cyberman collapsed on set that Sir Bruce - a heart surgeon before becoming NHS England medical director - leapt into action.

BBC reporter Justin Rowlatt told the Daily Telegraph that he ran to the green room to find Sir Bruce before uttering the immortal line: “We’ve got an emergency, the Cyberman has fainted.”

Sir Bruce took charge and performed a health check on the Cyberman, who made a full recovery.

We couldn’t help but wonder what might have happened had Sir Bruce not been there. Anxious staff may well have bundled him off to the local A&E where he would have added to the winter pressures (and scared children).

All-in-all, the affair was a solid advert for senior medical assessment negating the need for an admission.

According to Doctor Who lore, Cybermen were created by a billionaire inventor in order to spare humanity the physical pain so often caused by their flawed, disease-ridden bodies.

Keen viewers will not that Cybermen have a fully integrated patient care record and telehealth monitoring system – innovations that so far elude the NHS.

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