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In fact and in fiction, from Casualty to the latest ambulance reality series, the NHS is shown under strain if not in outright crisis. It is an accurate enough picture given many people’s experience, but it is not the one on show in The Hospital: Life on the Line (Channel 5, Monday) . Filmed in the cardiology department at the NHS Golden Jubilee in Clydebank, this is the NHS of everyone’s dreams.

Patients get treatment as soon as they need it in a hospital that’s clean, modern, and has lots of motivated staff on hand to aid patients’ speedy recovery. It’s a surgical Shangri-La, the likes of which we all hope is waiting for us when we need it. There is more to the Golden Jubilee than that, of course.



Built as a private hospital, it was in and out of receivership before being bought by NHS Scotland in 2002, becoming part of the NHS. Not that you would know any of this from the first episode. Rightly, the programme focuses on people rather than politics, but it might have been mentioned.

Just sayin’. It may feature later on. Andy, 54, was waiting for “the call”, the one to say a heart had been found and a transplant could go ahead.

“Every minute feels like a lifetime,” said his partner, Shabana. Hopes were raised, then dashed, and raised again. It was the stuff of life and death being played out, yet all was calm.

The narration did take a flowery turn occasionally, but on the whole The Hospital was commendably fuss-free, with patients and staff given time and.

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