Vital Signs 10 45 am and 7 45 pm 13 September to 8 October.

Vital Signs

10 45 am and 7 45 pm 13 September to 8 October, BBC Radio 4

What do everyday nation folk make of the Archers? Do they murmur about Tony's planting decisions, blot inconsistencies in the interpretation of MAFF rulings? Or do they just take delight in the story? NHS "insiders" may want to sit back and take pleasure in the story unfolding on BBC Radio 4's of the present day drama serial, Vital Signs, which is wager in a general hospital and go afters the work and life of its chief executive. They might find it hard, at the start anyway, to resist logging the consistencies with their acknowledge experience and, of course, the departures from them.

The early episodes join the hospital's chief executive, Carol Weaver, in everyday situations: coping with a defective down car and an unsympathetic partner, being stopped onward the stairs about funding for equipment, steering the local MP around the hospital, picking up an evening phone call and dealing directly, and adeptly, with a patient distressed from his failing eyesight. Unremarkable thus far, but that is from the inside. And perhaps, for the community who have no idea what an NH manager really does, it is surprisingly unremarkable. Just like many members of staff, Carol compromises her household relationships by working long hours, seemingly putting the service ahead of her family. And she, too, has single words and human feeling in the face of despairing bereaved families.

a certain quantity of key issues for the NH are dealt with in the drama. A not many exchanges between Carol and the MP make the .connections between waiting lists, wealth hospital beds, and staff, and also that this is a complicated issue that is difficult and frustrating to manage. near will recognise the weight in Carol's question when she asks the MP what he will do if she cannot reconcile what appear to be mutually exclusive priorities about currency and waiting lists: "What if I can't do it what will you do then?" He doesn't answer. Regrettably, for a number of chief executives of late, the answer has been that they have been replaced.

There are attempts at explaining other aspects of life in the NH of the late 1990 that do not work in like manner well. A ward manager tend hitherwards to tell Carol that he is leaving the NH prepared no longer to accept that lack of resources causes him to work to standards lower than he thinks acceptable. The dialogue is awkward at times, on the contrary these views are familiar. I skiped Carol wouldn't respond in a way that, in the expiration sounded platitudinous, but most chief executives would not have had often more to offer. A contrived conversation about NICE, in succession the other hand, didn't shed any light for insiders or outsiders: we can solitary hope that later episodes do not make trial of a potted version of a private finance initiative scheme or require to be paid [i]or[/i] undergone improvement programme.

Listeners are likely to find that other aspects of hospital life are not quite as they look forward toed Carol may be the common who is personally accountable for everything (from the performance of her clinical colleagues to the winter's potential bed crisis), further she is also part of a team, and there is alone a faint sense of that. However, the relationship with her secretary, Bea, is nicely drawn, with several importances of humour. The complicated relationship with the medical director also works.

Carol has a clear grasp of clinical matters: her conversations with a distressed obstetric registrar and with a hard compressed cardiologist are authentic and a lengthy way from the paper pushing stereotype The discussions between these characters, at times mutually formal and at others passionate and on the same level angry, make better and more serious drama than the solely confrontational and unidimensional portrayals elsewhere.

That said, Carol could have answered to the staircase conversation at buying (or leasing) a secondary ventilator for the baby unit. She might also have got forward to the problem of the solitary cardiologist before he had to period it out for her; the medical director and the cardiologist might have then cogitation twice about ganging up in succession her.

Most listeners will be drawn into the story and have the advantage [i]or[/i] blessing of it (if they can cover out the ghastly ersatz-Casualty music). It's also worth concentrating when Carol says: "The point to be solved [i]or[/i] settled is that if you can't talk to your partner, you're really alone." Like anyone other she should be able to talk, without worrying that discussing a question may be read as discussing a failure. That could help fix a portion of things--from clinical governance to the car park.

Hilary Scott representative health service ombudsman Gerry Bennett consultant physician and reader, healthcare of the somewhat advanced in life St Bartholomew's and The Royal London gymnasium of Medicine and Dentistry

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