Dear NHS Superstars review: This kind of misty-eyed veneration works as a defence of the government

This documentary is timed to surf the wave of NHS admiration. But a clappy industrial complex has built up around our health service that obscures its problems

Only a fragment of Dear NHS Superstars (BBC One) was available to reviewers, so I beg forgiveness if the final version turns out to be a Victorian romance or heist thriller. What I saw was an extended montage of tributes to the NHS, presented by Adam Kay, the junior-doctor-turned-comedian-turned-bazillion-selling author of This Is Going To Hurt, and most recently Dear NHS: 100 Stories to Say Thank You. Although most of the material predates coronavirus, the programme is timed to surf the wave of admiration, and clapping, that has propelled the health service through the pandemic. It makes sense to get it in now, while the sun is shining and the pubs are open, before any second lockdown takes hold.

Over twinkly feel-good music, celebrities recount their personal histories with the National Health Service. Some are more interesting than others. Disabled comedian Alex Brooker’s story about being given an opposable thumb at Great Ormond Street, and how that changed his life, was more moving than Adrian Lester’s asthma trouble.

I bow to nobody in my respect for Tanni Grey-Thompson, but my admiration was complete before I learnt about the smell of her cast when she was a girl. There’s Lenny Henry, Kevin Bridges, Shirley Ballas.

At times it feels like an opportunity for attention-starved celebrities to bang on about their ailments. It’s heartening that they’ve had positive experiences, but medical conditions rarely make for compelling conversation.

At the risk of me sounding grouchy, this well-intentioned programme is part of a wider problem. (My apologies if the final two thirds turn into a detailed look at NHS funding.) A clappy industrial complex has built up around our health service that obscures its problems. We spend so much time saying how great the NHS is, that we don’t stop to ask how it might be better. It’s successful in some areas, but in others it lags behind international competitors. Our cancer survival rates are poor. We struggle to recruit and retain staff.

This kind of misty-eyed veneration ends up working as a defence of the government. What looks like a harmless opportunity for collective gratitude becomes a smokescreen. If there is a real story of the NHS in recent years, it’s that it has managed to retain most of its strengths against a background of a constant squeeze in funding. We are endlessly being told how great the NHS is, while conditions for its staff, battered with targets, get harder and harder. Every one of the medical professionals I know would rather work in a properly funded health service than be applauded on Thursday evenings.

Goodwill towards individual healthcare workers, who put themselves in the way of Covid to deliver excellent treatment, ought not disguise the underlying issues with the way the health service is run. The NHS might be full of superstars, but they shouldn’t have to be.