TV review: An Hour to Save Your Life on BBC2 proves why the NHS is wonderful

To watch these people suffer is almost unbearable, and, if duty did not compel me to, I would have switched over simply because I can’t cope with that level of emotional stress

An Hour to Save Your Life, BBC (BBC)

An Hour to Save Your Life, BBC2

First Dates, Channel 4

Olympics 2016, BBC1, BBC2, BBC4

Sometimes gut-wrenching obscenity comes at unexpected times in unexpected places. The BBC’s An Hour to Save Your Life is one such. I had approached this show in the manner I might an episode of Holby City or Casualty, i.e. with no great expectations. Painfully wrong. While Holby and Caz drain any sense of drama with their potent mixture of rubbish acting, predictable storylines and over lit sets, An Hour to Save Your Life does quite the opposite. This is, after all, a show devoted to people on the brink of death, and if you’ve never witnessed anyone going through the extreme pain of a heart attack, or in the early stages of a stroke, then this programme represents your hell-sent opportunity to cadge a ride with the grim reaper as he homes in on his next quarry.

Will death be thwarted by the efforts of the dedicated paramedics? It helps if they can get to a patient and begin care within 60 minutes of an incident, with a disproportionately better chance of success in that “golden hour”. There is real tension there and, most of all, one connects with these strangers who are going through the most terrible traumas. To watch these people suffer is almost unbearable and, if duty did not compel me to, I would have switched over simply because I can’t cope with that level of emotional stress. The power of the scenes playing out in front of you that are, in a true sense of the term, obscene,

And to what purpose? Well there was one, and the messages I took were as follows.

An Hour to Save a Life, BBC (BBC)

First, the NHS is wonderful, and especially wonderful are the teams who can save lives so intelligently, so caringly, so skilfully. Second, the NHS really does need proper kit and highly trained staff to be able to do this. For example, a little portable scanner can tell an early responder what is going inside someone’s fractured skull, and this take appropriate action. It also helps if they can get there fast, say via helicopter, and of course helicopters are expensive. It wasn’t exactly an appeal on behalf of the NHS Party, but it wasn’t far off it; but the argument was undeniable.

The third message I took from it is a bit more controversial, as it happens: it is always a very bad error to get on anything that’s got two wheels. Two of the three appalling cases featured in this real life medi-drama were as a result of a road traffic accident. One was a motorcyclist whose head ended up under the wheel of a bin lorry; the other a pedal cyclist who fell off and hit his face on a cattle grid. Now I am all in favour of separate cycle lanes, of heavier penalties and bans for idiot drivers who pay insufficient attention, and any other pro-bike measure you can imagine. I do, though, also think that the time has come to stop encouraging people to go cycling to work and the like, and I would encourage the authorities to discourage motorbikes. It would mean rather fewer obscene tragedies in A&E. Simple as that, really.

A matter of time: London's Air Ambulance featured in a 'An Hour to Save Your Life'

Lying as it does in the publicity shadow of Channel 4’s fleshfest Naked Attraction, which, with its unflinching determination to break all records for broadcasting naughty bits has outraged Middle England, the much superior First Dates is a bit of a wallflower. Well, this welcome new series reminds us what is so good about the formula; couples meeting for the first time and the viewer eavesdropping. This is dating done in the correct order – getting dressed, meeting, drinks, food, conversation, one thing led to another, or not – and much the better for it. Whereas Naked Attraction feels like it is being filmed at a VD clinic, First Dates is in a trendy restaurant and, compatible or not, all of the participants just want to have as good time with their clothes on as with their clothes off. Even the chap from Derry with Tourette’s had a relatively demure version of the syndrome. I was particularly taken by the elderly lady who declared that “the nice thing about dating at my age is that you don’t have to meet the parents”. Such naked wit deserves to be acknowledged.

By the way, and just in case you thought I’d somehow missed it, I found the blanket coverage of the Olympics on the BBC excessive and a crashing bore. Quite obscene, in fact. There must be a better balance than this.