BBC fails to rise to challenge of NHS debate

If this is the future of political broadcasting, please give me back the past.

Last night BBC1 cleared its schedules for a series of programmes on "Your NHS". Their aim was to try a new way to do politics on television. Greg Dyke, the BBC's Director-General, is concerned that conventional political programmes are a turn-off for most people under 45. He thinks a new approach is needed.

Last night's "experience" was the BBC's first stab at tackling this. From 7.30pm until 11pm, we were served dishes designed to show us a life in the day of the NHS: here a GP, there a geriatric consultant, one moment an NHS patient being treated in France, another paramedics rescuing a car crash victim.

For anyone who did not know that GPs led busy lives, or that Britain has too few nursing homes, last night's programmes were doubtless an eye-opener. And the pictures were terrific. But for anyone looking for fresh insights, or rigorous analysis (as distinct from fragmentary description) of what is wrong with the NHS will have gone to bed disappointed.

At the heart of last night's "experience" was a poll to determine the people's priorities for the NHS. About 175,000 people took part throughout the day, by telephone or internet. They were invited to pick their priority from a list, initially of 12 options, narrowing in stages to five. The top choice (picked by 73,402) was free long-term care for the elderly, followed by more pay for NHS staff (28,434).

These are big numbers, but utterly meaningless. To describe them, as Peter Snow did throughout the evening, as "your priorities", is simply wrong. Such surveys, with their self-selecting samples, are unrepresentative. Until now, BBC guidelines have rightly insisted they are used purely for entertainment, and not quoted on news bulletins. Yesterday this bogus exercise was promoted in the Six O'Clock News.

So why did they do it? The likeliest answer, and it explains much of what was wrong with the programmes, is that the cart of televisual form was placed before the horse of thoughtful content. The way to dissect any large subject is to start by finding out the truth and then to work out how to impart that truth to the audience. Yesterday the BBC seemed to reverse that process.

Occasionally a gritty debate was started among the 20 or so guests (doctors, academics, trade unionists and so on) invited to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. But no debate was permitted to reach a conclusion. As is always the way when discussion is confined to three minutes, we never got beyond slogans and soundbites.

Nicky Campbell's interview with Tony Blair was little better. "Go public with your private thinking", invited Campbell. It was a naive invitation that the Prime Minister easily declined. A little later Blair looked embarrassed when Campbell tried to present him with a "pledge card" of the top five demands from the BBC's bogus poll. However, the real red face ought to belong to the BBC executive who thought up this stunt.

To say this is not to deny that there is a real problem. Too few younger people engage with politics. There is no informative value in an unwatched programme, however worthy. The answer, though, is not to abandon rigorous inquiry. It is to find new ways to uphold these virtues. Only one part of last night's schedule worked: a special edition of This Is Your Life. It concerned twins, Ray and Trevor Powles, both eminent consultants at London's Royal Marsden Hospital. This was well-researched and told a compelling story.

The BBC is right to seek new ways to connect with younger viewers. But not everything that is new is good, and not everything that is old is bad. Yes, the NHS is in trouble; but so is the BBC's concept of a lively political "experience".