THERE are lots of good real-life programmes on at the moment about hospitals, such as Hospital Sydney and A&E, but by far the best, if that’s the right word, is 24 Hours in A&E.

This shows life and death and all the attendant dramas at the medical coal-face, so to speak, as a total of 72 cameras and microphones located all over Kings College Hospital A&E department in London pick up the life-changing trauma over a 24-hour period.

Whether it’s saving the life of a heart-attack victim or recording frank and usually foul-mouthed conversations of patients in the waiting room it’s an unflinching look at a none-too-pleasant side of British life.

In fact, it’s a real eye-opener. Medical drama series like Casualty, with their daft, far-fetched plots, can’t hold a candle to this programme which shows an unexpurgated version of how life in Britain really is today — especially at weekends.

Anyone who has ever had the misfortune to sit and wait in an A&E, and certainly those poor souls who work in such places, will know exactly what I’m talking about here.

Given Britain’s binge culture there are drunks and druggies galore, with young people regularly being brought in after collapsing through an excess of drink or chemicals, or both, often taken in life-threatening quantities.

Add to that heady cocktail gang-related knifings and muggings as well as everyday stuff like old folk taking a tumble and people injuring themselves in minor accidents, and you’ve got yourself a bird’s-eye view of the bloody underbelly of modern day Britain.

The staff have the patience of saints as they deal with casualties bad-mouthing them, patients demanding to have their minor cut seen before someone with serious injuries after waiting only a few minutes, or staff bravely confronting hooded gang members invading the A&E intent on finishing off someone they stabbed earlier.

It’s only when you see this condensed into an hour from a 24-hour spell that you see how our once tolerant and stable culture has sunk to a new low.

But the hard-working medical staff, despite the near constant abuse and clear danger from some patients and their friends, are dedicated to their job of helping others in times of need.

If only some of their patients, instead of demanding their unearned rights, had the same unselfish attitude, this country wouldn’t be going to the dogs quite as quickly as it appears to be.

If you think I’m exaggerating, watch this brilliant programme and be appalled at how low some sections of British society have sunk.