GPs: Behind Closed Doors review – depressed about the NHS yet?

Meet Ricky. He has a knee injury, a stiff neck and a cough. He missed a consultant appointment because he is terrified of going to hospital. “I’m scared,” he confesses to Dr Jiwanji at Farnham Road Surgery in Slough. “I’m not going.” Meanwhile, his knee pain worsens. Also, he lives in a “disgusting” house. Someone keeps urinating in the hallway. Dr Jiwanji asks him what he needs. “A knee support and some physio,” Ricky replies. In a broken system, this is how a broken patient’s complex needs must be distilled.

Except, Dr Jiwanji explains: “We don’t provide knee supports. You have to buy them.”

“I’m on benefits,” Ricky replies. “I can’t afford it.”

So Ricky gives up on a knee support and Dr Jiwanji writes another referral letter explaining that Ricky will only be operated on under general anaesthetic. Welcome to a typical exchange in GPs: Behind Closed Doors (Channel 5, 8pm). Here’s another: a beleaguered receptionist listens to a woman’s complaint that her legs are killing her. “I might as well just sit in bed and die,” she announces. The receptionist continues to look at her screen. “Can you come tomorrow at 11.40am?” she eventually asks without looking up. The woman is delighted. She has hit the jackpot: a next-day appointment.

And so on, ad infinitum. This might be the most depressing programme on television. What is the point of it? To chill our hearts? Frighten hypochondriacs? Remind us that GPs, like the musicians on the Titanic, are doing their best in a bad situation? We know this, that the NHS, the last bastion of civilised life in this shattered country, is being dismantled even as each new episode airs and we repeat-dial our surgeries in the hope of a phone consultation. We don’t need to see a doctor examining a lump on Colleen’s hand to prove it.

Nevertheless, it continues. The GPs see a baby with eczema, a young woman experiencing seizures whose mum has recorded them on her phone, a man with concussion following a head injury, and another with a swollen leg that might be the result of fatal internal bleeding. Then there’s Leslie, who has hypersensitivity pneumonitis, otherwise known as bird-fancier’s lung. He used to keep 500 birds but is now so ill he has got rid of 300 rare species that were in his house. And got himself some squirrels instead. “No feathers,” he explains between sputum-laden coughs.

The dishy doctor of the practice – because there must be one – is Dr James. “He’s the delicious-looking doctor here,” Beryl giggles as she awaits a steroid injection, which she declares to be lovely. “I’m not sure about that,” Dr James quips. “Everyone here says I look like David Cameron.” This is pretty much the only heartwarming moment – and it features David Cameron.

By the time the programme finishes with a spoof-like update on the patients – Colleen’s lump has been removed, Sean’s potentially fatal swollen leg turned out to be muscle strain – I have figured out the potential of this excruciating show. It will become a government-endorsed project, on endless repeat on an obscure channel, allowing viewers to self-diagnose from the sofa and save NHS resources. Either that, or it is a good basis for an episode of Black Mirror.

Kids On The Edge (Channel 4, 9pm) is also a fly-on-the-wall series about an NHS service but with genuine heart and soul. A thoughtful and moving documentary following the specialised work of the Tavistock trust, the second episode takes us inside Gloucester House, an NHS-run primary school for children with severe mental, social and emotional health issues. Its 18 pupils have all been expelled. Gloucester House represents the end of the line, and like many such places, it turns out to be filled with rage, resolve, patience and hope.

The most moving story features its longest standing pupil Josh, 11, who has a history of appalling abuse and neglect: at the age of three he was scavenging food for his two younger brothers. Adopted when he was five by a a lovely, tender gay couple called Stig and Phil, Josh is overwhelmed by rage and struggles to feel remorse. Josh’s behaviour deteriorates towards the end of term. He runs away on a school trip and says he feels as if he is going to burst. But the commitment of the workers, therapists, teachers, parents and children is nothing short of miraculous. “We’re fighting for Josh to have a future,” says Stig. And it doesn’t get more hopeful than that.

GPs: Behind Closed Doors review – depressed about the NHS yet?