Episode 4 A Picture of Health

In this world of transplants, microsurgery

and life-saving medicines, it's too easy to take for granted

the amazing things our doctors do for us.

We forget just how far we've come in our lifetime.

So I'm going to take us on a journey to remind us how things used to be.

I'm Larry Lamb. Welcome to A Picture Of Health.

Coming up on A Picture Of Health, the changing role of our family GP.

A doctor would come and you were always put in your mummy's bed.

The ads that taught us how to cross the road.

When you get to the curb, always stop, stop, stop!

And Larry's special guest in the Picture Of Health surgery

is Stuart Hall, who'll look back on his own medical memories.

They just threw me in the ambulance.

Weren't designed for comfort, were they?

Now, it's a sad fact that war and conflict bring with them

death and serious injury.

Often, servicemen and women are so badly injured

that they lose a limb.

Today, modern technology comes to their aid and gets them moving again

with super lightweight limbs.

But that's not always been the case.

JAZZ MUSIC

Eric Harrison and Ian Walker enjoy nothing more

than a quiet game of cards in the Legless Arms.

70 years ago, they both answered the call to duty and paid a heavy price.

They're just two of the 20,000 veterans from World War Two

who lost a limb during the conflict.

And instead of the steel and carbon used today,

they relied on wood and leather to get them back on their feet.

The Allied Invasion of Sicily was a major WWII campaign

which saw over 5,000 service personnel killed

and over 15,000 wounded.

In 1943, Corporal Ian Walker was a section leader.

We moved through the frontline

and came up against a second line,

and I was then immediately hit

in the right side.

Ian had been shot in his thigh by machine gun fire.

When I came to, because it knocked me out,

the battle had passed over where I was

and I could only hear it in the distance,

the screams and shouts.

I felt all over my body

to try and find out what had happened to me

and I found a horrible mess

and obviously the bullets

had done quite a lot of damage to my thigh.

It was quite clear it was smashed.

I just felt I was jolly lucky to be alive, really.

There was nothing I could do.

I just lay there and, as dawn broke,

I could see a stretcher bearer party

coming towards me.

For Ian, the war was the over.

He was rushed home to England where surgeons found

he had developed gangrene.

It was very difficult to bear.

Like red hot needles being stuck into your thigh.

I was losing weight very quickly,

so they operated and took it off.

Eric Harrison is another veteran

who lost a leg during WWII.

He was in the Royal Navy on the minesweeping flotilla HMS Hussar,

when it was bombed by friendly fire.

I could only remember it specifically

because it was a lovely, sunny day

and I was on the upper deck, reading a book.

I had something hit my leg,

something hit my shoulder,

and I couldn't seem to get up.

Somehow or other, I just jumped over the side I think.

78 servicemen were killed when the Hussar was bombed.

149 were wounded.

Eric was picked up by a passing Destroyer and taken home

to receive urgent medical treatment on his leg.

The surgeon said

that they would have to take it off

and I said, "Well, if that's what's got to be done,

"t better be done."

As young men, Eric and Ian had to come to terms

with the fact that their bodies had changed forever.

But they were not alone.

Queen Mary's in Roehampton was a military hospital

opened during the first World War.

It specifically treated servicemen

who had lost a limb

and became the world's leading amputee rehabilitation centre.

In WWII, Roehampton would treat

an incredible 20,000 limbless servicemen,

among them Ian and Eric.

I was rather shattered by seeing

so many chaps who had had one, two,

three limbs amputated. So I realised then

that I was lucky in a way.

I'd got a straight-forward one leg,

limb, missing.

After the trauma of surgery, both Eric and Ian were fitted

with new false legs.

You see they had to measure

the actual limb and, again,

many of the stumps were rather tender.

They had to be careful

that they'd got the socket ready,

that it didn't impinge on the painful area.

Although prosthesis had progressed hugely

since the First World War,

the limbs Eric and Ian were given were still extremely cumbersome.

This was my old leg,

which I've only recently dispensed with.

It's wood.

This corset goes round the thigh.

You can get some idea of the weight

because I'm really straining to hold that leg.

in that position because of the weight.

To help with the weight,

these heavy legs had an adjustable support

which went round the shoulder.

It had a strap fitted here

which came up with a buckle on the end

which you connected the shoulder strap to.

It wasn't comfortable.

You always had a pull on the shoulder.

Once their limbs were fitted,

Eric and Ian had to learn how to walk again.

You practise by walking up and down

between two parallel bars.

As far as I can remember, I coped with that quite well.

But what helped everyone at the centre

was the camaraderie among the veterans.

The mere fact there were a lot of them,

there was a competitive spirit.

But they were a cheery lot.

There is a lot of humour in this, quite honestly.

There was one man who lost his leg. "Oh, I lost my leg!"

"All right for you, chum - I've lost both!" You know?

I was in the prime of my life at that time

and found that I got better and better.

But these old legs were still not without their little niggles.

The hinges, they were the bane of my life

because they used to get noisy

You walked down the street and you were clicking away.

LEG CLINKS

Some people would look and you'd think, "Marvellous so-and-so's!"

It's no good looking at them and complaining.

You've got no option, you see.

You've got to get used to this leg.

The companionship of both war and in hospital

has helped Eric and Ian no end.

And it is something which is continuing even today.

Eric and Ian now live in a residential home

specifically for veterans who have lost limbs in the wars.

Though the world of prosthetics has come on hugely since WWII

both Ian and Eric have always coped incredibly well

with their more old-fashioned limbs.

As a soldier, you expect to get these things.

It needs a realisation

that you've got to work at it

to get better, and I did.

It was an old friend, I suppose.

That leg had been with me for 67 years.

A long time, isn't it?

So we have with us, in the Picture Of Health surgery,

Marine Andy Grant.

-Hello, Andy.

-You OK?

How does your story compare with the two chaps on there.

Well, definitely how I got the injury in the first place

was, you know, similar. I was in Afghanistan,

but the same trauma that comes with it and, you know, all the confusion

and all that kind of thing at the time.

It's kind of like mine in that way.

Would the treatment that you received

and have received be the same as them?

No. I think that's the one thing.

It has moved on massively. When I got injured,

mine was five o'clock in the morning.

you know, I was only... I was lying there, bleeding to death,

but thankfully all the lads were round me and they'd all been given

the best first aid training ever.

I'd lost my femoral artery in my thigh.

I think they say within five or six minutes you can bled to death.

Thankfully, the lads had a tourniquet on me straight away,

stopped the bleeding, were patching me up everywhere else.

Within 40 minutes, the helicopter was in to pick me up

and take me to the main hospital in Afghanistan.

Obviously back then it wasn't quite as quick

getting the patients back to the hospitals.

I mean, when you see devices like this,

Is there anything like this still in use?

Like I say, for the guys who've got above knee amputations,

it looks similar in that sense.

You don't have all the straps on it now.

A lot of it's done with suction.

The lads have special liners that they can put in first

But the big difference for me is the weight.

-The weight?

-The weight has reduced a lot.

You know, I couldn't imagine walking around with how heavy this is.

-Could we have a look at your device.

-Yeah. The weight, you can see yourself.

compared to... Obviously, I'd have had this one back in the day.

See the weight of that to that, it's crazy.

-Feel that, Stuart. Feel the difference in those two.

-Yeah.

That one, isn't it?

Yeah, they must have realised as well

there's not a great need for a lot of the stuff.

You know, they've managed to trim it down a lot

and use different materials. That's all carbon fibre.

This has got leather and metal.

All this is crazy. It's hard to believe that people

-were even walking with all this on.

-Yeah, yeah.

-You've made a marvellous recovery, Andy.

-Yeah.

-Presumably you're active now, are you?

-Yeah.

Since I've got it done, I'm playing football again, I'm in the gym again,

I can put it on at 7 o'clock in the morning,

keep it on until 11 o'clock at night

and not bat an eyelid.

and you just get completely used to it, yeah?

Yeah. I mean, it does take a while to get used to,

but because the legs have moved on so well,

it's so easy to get comfortable in it.

I'm really lucky in that sense.

Yeah, you are. It's an inspiration to us all.

Thanks, Andy, for coming and talking to us.

-Thank you very much.

-Appreciate it, cheers.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

-Thank

-YOU.

for years, the government has tried to educate our children

to keep them safe from harm.

Top of the agenda - how to cross the road.

There was a time when we could let our children

play on the streets without fear of harm.

But if you flash forward several years,

roads were getting busier

and were no longer a safe place to play.

More and more children were being knocked down

and ending up in a hospital bed

-REPORTER:

-'Road accidents are the major cause of death and injury

'to school-age children.'

Our children needed protecting.

They needed to be taught about the dangers of roads

and how to cross safely.

Public pressure to make our streets safer was mounting,

In the early '70s, action was taken

in the form of a fluffy little squirrel.

'Mrs Fluffytail is taking Tufty and Bobby to the shops.

'Tufty, what's the right way to cross the road?'

I do remember little Tufty.

And he was a squirrel, a safety-conscious squirrel.

'Stop, then stand on the pavement near the kerb

'and look all round for traffic.'

Look.

'And listen.'

You know?

Which we still do!

'Oh! What happened to their ball?'

And they showed a poignant piece of film, where there was

a car running over a ball, flat,

so it looked like, this could be you.

Just think what might have happened to Tufty or Bobby

if they had run into the road.

Mrs Fluffytail had seen it all and was very pleased with them

because they didn't run into the road to get the ball.

But Tufty wasn't just about a TV ad -

there was a whole club you could be involved with.

You could join the Tufty Club.

You got badges from magazines. People wore them to school.

You got different badges that were collectable.

So, they got it into kids' culture, kids' street culture,

but also that message, you don't want Tufty crushed into roadkill.

Tufty don't want you crushed into roadkill.

And it seemed Tufty was getting his message across.

How do you cross the road?

You stop at the crossing, you look right, you look left,

you look right again, and when it's all clear, walk across, safely.

You just look right, you just look left,

and if there's no cars coming, I just walk across.

Using a squirrel and using animation,

it somehow or other had meaning to it, particularly for children.

They could watch that.

They didn't want a grown-up in a doctor's outfit, or a first-aid man.

The squirrel saying, "Don't cross the street" made a lot of sense.

A year later, and a new road safety slogan was born

one that would stick in all our minds for years to come.

A massive government campaign on road safety was launched today.

Its aim is to tell children and parents

all about the Green Cross Code.

And this time it wasn't a fluffy mammal

but a superhero, who would deliver the message.

-Will they see that car?

-CAR HORN BEEPS

Back in the '60s and early '70s, we were starved of superheroes,

and there wasn't one single home-grown superhero,

until along came, "Stop! Don't do that!

"Look and listen before you cross the road."

Instead of look right, look left,

look right again and cross, along came the Green Cross Code man.

I think I'm going to have a word with those two.

That wasn't very clever, was it?

If you'd been looking and listening all the way across,

that wouldn't have happened.

The first one was a fellow called David Prowse. Big guy, six-foot-six.

If he stood there, you'd never cross the street, until he told you to.

When you get to the kerb, always stop, stop, stop, stop.

Sorry, Green Cross!

That's the way!

Always use the Green Cross Code.

Because I won't be there when you cross the road.

The superhero idea continued through to '76

this time he was a true legend.

MUSIC: "Pick Up The Pieces" by the Average White Band

There was one with Kevin Keegan with long hair and bell-bottoms,

because he was practically a national hero as a footballer.

Hey! What do you think you're playing at? Come here!

That's no way to cross the road, is it?

Come over here, I'll show you a safe way to cross.

They used celebrities like Kevin Keegan, taking children

to where there's no cars parked, so they could see where they're going.

Follow the Green Cross Code. Take it from me.

And later that year came another famous face -

though the message was often a little confused.

Then we had Jon Pertwee, who was Doctor Who,

one of my favourite Doctor Whos.

And he had this thing called SPLINK.

I asked several people and they can't remember what it was.

First, find a safe place to cross, then stop. Stand on the pavement,

near the kerb.

It was something like sidewalk, I don't know, people...

When there is no traffic near, walk straight across the road.

Look both ways, I think, then cross, with a K.

Well, now, we'll all remember the Green Cross Code. And use it.

HE LAUGHS

Those early ads certainly struck a chord by using humour

and famous characters to teach our kids to cross the road.

It is an amazing testament to the power of advertising

and public education films that a cartoon squirrel

probably saved thousands of children from injury

and hundreds of families from grieving for a lost child.

Tufty worked. Bring him back.

It was so catchy, and there were these great people doing it.

And, I teach my grandchildren the Green Cross Code, you know,

crossing the road safely.

So, that one has stuck in the national consciousness

for a very long time.

Today, more shocking tactics are used.

Before his leg was bent backwards, he loved to play football all day.

But, the boy didn't cross in a safe place.

Where he could see cars coming his way.

But those three key words have remained the same.

I think I sort of predate that quite a bit

because I still remember a time when policemen used to come to

the school to teach the Highway Code and show you how to ride a bike.

It's interesting.

That was kind of a crossover time when roads were,

you could see from the films, still, there were empty roads.

Not empty, but the traffic is nothing like it is now.

In those days, drivers knew how to drive.

The pace of life was slower.

Traffic moved at about 30 miles an hour.

We didn't even have a car radio, so you were aware of, all the time,

I was a motorcyclist, you were aware, all the time,

of all the noises. The changes in the road surface.

Changes there, that's dry ice.

Wet leaves. So, you were aware all the time.

Peripheral vision.

We need now, to have a programme to educate drivers

of how to deal with pedestrians.

-Because, pedestrians and motor cars just don't mix.

-No, no, no.

Nowadays, you could play football in the street,

and when something came along, you could hear it.

You moved out of the way. Traffic went by.

The driver would say sorry to you and all the rest of it.

We were sharing the roads together.

Now, a driver thinks the road belongs to him

and the children say, well, where are we? Are we safe to cross?

Because they're hurtling along at these high speeds.

So, no matter what you do with children,

the education must start with the driver.

Yes, absolutely.

GPs are the backbone of healthcare in this country.

Providing lifelong support to every man, woman and child.

So, it's hard to imagine a time when the family doctor

was beyond the reach of all but the wealthiest in society.

In the early 1900s the nation's health was in a perilous state.

Poverty, poor housing and lack of sanitation

had led to widespread disease.

And amongst the working classes, few could afford proper medical care.

Our family was really quite poor.

We didn't have a lots of money to spare for extraneous costs.

And so, if we had to see a doctor,

that was quite a lump sum out of the household purse.

So, we never saw doctors.

I had problems with my legs when I was born.

And so, when I was 18-months-old,

they told my mother what had got to be done and how much it would be.

She said, I can't afford it, and the doctor said, well,

you've got until tomorrow to make up your mind,

and my mother went round with a tin to all the family

to collect money for me to have this operation, which I did have it.

And it put my legs right,

otherwise I wouldn't be able to walk when I grew up.

But when the NHS was introduced in 1948, things changed.

Everyone could choose a GP and the service would be free.

I can remember my mum talking to me.

"Who was the best doctor? Which doctor should we go to?"

"Oh, he's too far away, we can't go to him." Choosing your doctor.

The government was saying, "Be sure and choose your doctor now."

Have you chosen your family doctor?

If not, ask your doctor, now,

if he will look after you under the new scheme.

Now, don't forget. Choose your doctor, now!

98% of the population signed up immediately.

Overnight, everyone had their own doctor.

Dr Brown. Very tall, dignified-looking man.

Always had a little bow tie, you know?

At lunchtime, he would be out in his yard at the front,

doing a bit of gardening.

And, as you walked through to go into his surgery.

"I will be in soon," he would say.

Dr Mardell. He was a very lovely fellow,

very warm, very like your uncle.

But you would have no more thought of questioning him

or moving from his care than you would of thought

of painting yourself blue and turning druid.

Mummy says I'll soon be better, shall I, Dr Manning?

Yes, if you're a good girl.

We thought doctors were gods, so, when we saw them,

we absolutely adhered to the letter of their advice.

And we wouldn't have dreamed of not doing what they told us.

GPs were at the centre of local communities

and with an average 2,500 patients in their care, they were very busy.

We were called out in all hours and in all weathers.

You won't have a lot of leisure, even to eat your meals.

And, somehow, you had to make time to read the journals,

so as to keep up with the latest work.

Roger Selby was a GP in the Bradford area for over 30 years.

This is where my late senior partner lived from the 1930s onwards.

We had the main surgery here.

My partner died in 1965

but we continued to use this surgery until 1972.

Patients come to consult the doctor at his place of work, his surgery.

And the daily routine of every general practitioner starts here.

And after surgery, the doctor would begin the house calls.

The doctor would come and you were always put in your mummy's bed,

when doctor was coming, because there was a bit more room

in Mum and Dad's room.

One of his calls this morning is on an old patient.

A chat with the doctor will relieve her loneliness

and probably do as much good as any medicine he can prescribe.

These are some of the terraced houses near the surgery.

We would make lots of visits here.

To all sorts of conditions.

We would do, oh, 15 to 25 visits a day.

A very important part of general practice in those days.

A special relationship between doctor and patient is very valuable.

For the doctor can never regard his time as his own.

PHONE RINGS

Nowadays, I regret that they don't visit like they used to do.

I know they're very busy seeing patients.

But, we were very busy, too, but we managed to visit.

20 years after its birth, the NHS itself was in poor health.

A growing population had stretched budgets to the max.

The GP struggled to meet demand.

We are facing a crisis in family doctoring.

Far too few doctors are trying to look after far too many patients.

With grossly inadequate facilities to practice 20th-century medicine.

It was getting more difficult to go in and see the doctor.

You would go in the surgery,

and there would be more and more people in there.

And it's even worse now.

You go in our surgery, it always seems to be full.

It's a bit of a nightmare if you think, I must see a doctor,

and then you try to get through, and it takes you an hour,

every time you try, it's engaged.

And I see different doctors every time.

And even though I've been with the same surgery for years,

I don't think any doctor knows, actually, who I am.

When I go I see a different person,

and some are really cold towards me, and some are OK.

I wouldn't say that it was like a nice, friendly experience,

when I went to see the doctor.

For many, today's family GP has lost the personal touch.

For Dr Selby, his memories of how it used to be are very much alive.

22 years after retirement, I still meet patients

in the supermarket who say, "Hello, doctor, how are you?"

And I don't remember their names, but they remember mine!

Yes, it's a very nice to see them, still.

Say, "Aah".

Well, Doctor Selby.

We hear a lot about the connection between the doctors

and the pharmaceutical world now.

Was it like that when you first started out?

Were you encouraged to administer a lot of new medicines?

Yes, indeed.

There were plenty of traditional medicines as well. Mostly mixtures.

Yes.

Do you feel that that's one of the major changes in medicine

since you started, shall we say?

There have been great advances in treatment for so many conditions.

Of course, there have been great advances in medicines as well.

Stewart, do you remember, I mean, I can think of, when I was a kid,

when the doctor came to visit, you were made to look smart.

It was a big thing if the doctor was coming to your home.

I thought medicine in my day was totally magnificent.

My brother, for instance, knocked down by a lorry.

Crossing the road, bang!

His right leg was hanging off by a bit of flesh.

My father put my brother, Keith, into his car, a Riley 9,

rushed him to the local doctor, who stitched the leg back on!

He still has a row of stitches right round his leg, my brother.

Fortunately, he survived, but, thanks to the miracle man,

the family doctor.

He was a man of all trades. He could deal with anything.

He was used to anything.

But, if they had the facilities in your day and my day,

that they have today,

then it would have been a better world, really, wouldn't it?

You look at the advances in drugs now,

and all this, well, in my day, diphtheria was the big killer.

Now, it's gone altogether.

We did have crises, of course.

The biggest crisis we had was the smallpox outbreak

in Bradford in 1962.

"Bratford?"

No, not Bradford.

Bratford.

We're in Yorkshire, lad, come on!

And, on that note, Doctor Selby,

thanks very much for coming along and joining us,

in the Picture Of Health surgery.

We take it for granted today that, if there is an accident,

a fully-trained paramedic will be on the scene,

equipped to treat any injuries.

But you don't have to look that far back in history to a time

when an ambulance man or woman would simply have been a van driver.

1970, and in West Yorkshire an ambulance rushes back to base.

It was a time before paramedics and when an ambulance driver

was just that. Their job was to simply take passengers to hospital.

Most of them were good taxi men.

Who knew how to get from A to B quicker, in the shortest way,

and how to get to each of the hospitals.

Fred Williams joined the West Riding Ambulance Service in 1963.

The main qualification he needed was a driving licence.

His interview was simply a test of his skills behind the wheel.

Before we set off, he said, "Now, I want you to imagine

"there's a little old lady on't stretcher in't back."

"And if tha wants this job.

"She better be on't stretcher when we get back!"

Fred got the job, and it was a job that he loved.

He loved it so much, in fact, that he got together with a colleague

to make this film all about it.

The actual idea of that film was a day in an ambulanceman's life.

We set off with him coming to work and being allocated outpatients,

then this call, an accident happened on a campsite.

But this film wasn't just about a day in the life

it was designed to show others how to help patients on the scene.

We'd got this big firework, and we only had one.

So, there were none of this take two or take three.

It had to happen first time and be right.

We put this firework under the stove.

It were all hit and miss but it were certainly a hit.

It nearly blew me back for real.

This was the start of a change in ambulance services across Britain.

More drivers were trained to treat patients on the scene

rather than just rush them back to hospital.

And this new way of working was gaining mixed reaction.

In them days, if you were at the scene more than two minutes

they wanted to know why.

I'd be at accidents, and there's always a crowd round.

You would hear them muttering,

"He's going to be dead before they get him to hospital."

Because the concept of the public was an ambulance

with a bell ringing, or a siren, screaming up to the place,

putting them in the back,

shut the doors, and screaming off again, you see?

The development of our ambulance service was reaching a new stage.

Patients could be stabilised in situ before being transported to hospital.

But if lives were really going to be saved,

the crews would need more than just first aid.

And it was in London where the pressure was really being felt.

Brian Cragg had joined the capital's service in 1975.

Training back then was vastly different from what it is now.

It was a basic six-week course

and, er, you learned the elements of first aid, anatomy and physiology

but the focus of the training really was about how to use the ambulance equipment, so it...

it worked for the times then.

But times were changing. 1979 and London was on red alert.

ALARM RINGS

It was the first murder inside the Palace of Westminster for more than 150 years.

After a period of peace,

Irish terrorists had begun a frightening bombing campaign.

Brian was at the centre of the violence.

We'd arrived back at our station, which was just around the corner from the Houses of Parliament,

but as we parked up, we heard a dull thud in the distance,

which I recognised as the sound of an explosion.

EXPLOSION

A wrecked blue Vauxhall Cavalier had brought a new and horrifying dimension

to the election of '79.

Airey Neave, then Shadow Minister for Northern Ireland, was the bomb's target.

I climbed across the bonnet, got in next to him, he was in quite a bad way,

but, yeah, we worked on him for quite a time, trying to extricate him.

Took him off to Westminster Hospital, we'd done a fair bit of treatment along the way,

cos even in those days, we'd got some extended skills,

but, unfortunately, he died when we arrived there.

Sadly, nothing would have saved Airey Neave's life,

but it was a stark reminder of the extreme situations ambulance drivers like Brian were dealing with.

And the equipment they had to rely on was simplistic and very old.

It's amazing how basic things were in those days.

I suppose when you were there, it didn't seem as basic,

cos it's what you knew, it's what you had.

In the corner there, you've got oxygen.

This takes me back. This is, um...

We used to call it a wooden back leg.

It's adjustable and the idea was that you could

fit it to a patient's lower leg

and you'd be able

to immobilise fractures

of the two bones of the lower leg,

the ankle.

You can see the Furley stretcher, which was quite a heavy wooden and canvas stretcher -

bit of a remnant, really, from the old Civil Defence days

and I wouldn't mind betting this one is probably older than me.

SIREN BLARES

The ambulance crews needed more than just equipment left over from the war.

And in the mid-1980s, they were given a piece of kit

that would change our ambulance service for ever.

Looking down, up. Stand clear!

Checking the monitor, still in VF.

DEFIBRILLATOR SHOT GIVEN

Delivering the first shot.

This piece of kit was the defibrillator.

Dealing with heart-attack victims

using a technique called defibrillation is part of the advanced training.

For me, that was a turning point,

that said, "Yes, we are becoming more professional.

"The ambulance service is arriving. We're there."

Being able to resuscitate patients at the scene saved thousands of lives.

The traditional techniques ambulance crews have used

are increasingly being replaced by more sophisticated methods.

And it kick-started a nationwide training scheme to turn our ambulance drivers

into paramedics, a term officially coined in 1990.

Brian has seen huge changes in the ambulance service

and has some very fond memories.

As a 19-year-old, it was incredible fun,

with the added bonus, really, working in Central London,

you could be underneath The Arches, down in Villier Street,

looking after a homeless person

on one call, and the very next call, you might be in the Queen Mother's bedroom.

And today he spends his time training the paramedics of the future.

If you wanted to join the ambulance service today,

the basic route of joining is via a university.

So the six-week course is long put to bed.

-It's extraordinary, you see stock items still made of wood.

-Yes!

And then they're switching from that into defibrillators.

-Wonderful.

-It's quite amazing...

-Did well there.

-..the advances, eh?

Extraordinary. I had an experience with an ambulance.

I was head boy at my local school and road a 500 BSA machine to school.

All the lads, you know, silk scarves and goggles and the lot,

and a dustbin cart turned out in front of me,

so I somersaulted off the bike

under the wheels of the dust cart, three tonnes on my private parts...

-Really?

-..which was very uncomfortable.

-Very uncomfortable.

-The called for the ambulance. It was like an old cart.

-Yeah.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Righto, then,"

and just threw me in the ambulance.

-They weren't designed for comfort, were they?

-Threw me in and took me to hospital.

-The Crown Jewels recovered, by the way. I did get better.

-I think that's really what it is,

it's all about the care that they can deal with right there at the site,

rather than getting you, as it was in the old days, into the hospital.

It all had to be done then.

Well, I think when they come to a motor accident now,

when they come to a motorcyclist and he's got severe head injuries

and all the rest of it, these paramedics now,

they will ascertain whether it's safe to remove the crash helmet

to do whatever's necessary,

and save the bloke's life, so they do save countless lives.

I would take my hat off to the modern ambulance driver,

-the paramedic - they do a wonderful job.

-Yeah.

-So, Stuart?

-Yes.

-Thank you so much for coming and contributing your stories...

There are plenty more where they came from.

-..and your medical recollections.

-We don't have time.

-But thanks for inviting me.

-It's been lovely.

-Been a pleasure.

-Thank you.

And you can find out more about how health care has changed from an Open University expert.

Go to...

..and follow the links.

Coming up next time -

the tiny baby who made medical history.

Every day we count our blessings that we were lucky enough to be involved.

And love them or hate them, we remember how specs used to be.

We were just so grateful to be able to see!

We didn't care what they looked like.

That's all from A Picture Of Health for today. Goodbye.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd