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Those are the headlines and this is BBC News. At ten o'clock Fiona Bruce | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
will be here with a full round-up of the news. First, it is time for | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
Newswatch. Hello and welcome to Newswatch | :00:00. | :00:07. | |
with me Samira Ahmed. Vital insight or just | :00:08. | :00:11. | |
demoralising coverage? The BBC's special NHS reporting | :00:12. | :00:14. | |
is in the spotlight. Is it ever justified | :00:15. | :00:19. | |
to show an image of a child who has just been killed, | :00:20. | :00:22. | |
as Newsnight did in a report Reports about the National Health | :00:23. | :00:25. | |
Service have been especially frequent on television news | :00:26. | :00:34. | |
bulletins over the last few weeks of winter, | :00:35. | :00:36. | |
but this week more so than ever. The BBC was running a week | :00:37. | :00:41. | |
of special programmes and reports, which they branded as Health Check, | :00:42. | :00:44. | |
about the state of the NHS, including Monday's Panorama | :00:45. | :00:52. | |
and lengthy items on the 6pm and 10pm bulletins on Monday, | :00:53. | :01:03. | |
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Seven years ago this council spent | :01:04. | :01:05. | |
about a third of its budget providing care and support to people | :01:06. | :01:08. | |
who are older and disabled. But now the cost of adult | :01:09. | :01:11. | |
social care is heading towards half of its budget, | :01:12. | :01:17. | |
with demand still increasing and that is at the heart | :01:18. | :01:19. | |
of the problems they are wrestling The BBC was given unrestricted | :01:20. | :01:22. | |
access to witness the We have had patients | :01:23. | :01:27. | |
here for 6-9 hours and we cannot We were in the corridor | :01:28. | :01:35. | |
for five hours. It isn't what you expect | :01:36. | :01:53. | |
from a country like ours. Hospitals like this one are running | :01:54. | :01:55. | |
at 95% capacity which means they are nearly full so with more | :01:56. | :01:58. | |
emergency cases coming in and difficulty discharging some | :01:59. | :02:00. | |
patients back into the community some of those needing surgery | :02:01. | :02:03. | |
are having to wait longer. Our health editor and special | :02:04. | :02:07. | |
correspondent and social affairs No question about the | :02:08. | :02:09. | |
comprehensive nature viewers told us by telephone | :02:10. | :02:24. | |
and webcam that they were concerned | :02:25. | :02:30. | |
about the effect of that coverage and that the BBC had | :02:31. | :02:33. | |
an axe to grind. Every night this week we have seen | :02:34. | :02:35. | |
the BBC 6pm and 10pm news leading with the story on the current state | :02:36. | :02:39. | |
of the NHS. We all know there are many | :02:40. | :02:41. | |
problems in the NHS, and there are many reasons for this | :02:42. | :02:44. | |
including bed blocking, immigration, lifestyles, | :02:45. | :02:46. | |
health tourism, waste, bad procurement, trivial A visits | :02:47. | :02:49. | |
and so on. And yet BBC news would rather have | :02:50. | :02:54. | |
us believe the problems are all due to so-called Tory cuts | :02:55. | :02:59. | |
and that throwing more money at the problem | :03:00. | :03:02. | |
will solve everything. Please, BBC, get your house | :03:03. | :03:05. | |
in order and start reporting This campaign should be | :03:06. | :03:08. | |
reserved for a Panorama I understand there are serious | :03:09. | :03:17. | |
problems in the NHS and I understand that things have got worse by some | :03:18. | :03:22. | |
measures, however, BBC News seems We have better health | :03:23. | :03:25. | |
care than most. Please try and help us to feel | :03:26. | :03:31. | |
grateful for what we have and try to help us make things | :03:32. | :03:34. | |
better rather than constantly I am not newsworthy because I am one | :03:35. | :03:36. | |
of the thousands of people who have received treatment from the NHS over | :03:37. | :03:41. | |
the last few months who have I only have praise for | :03:42. | :03:44. | |
the dedicated, professional staff who have carried out treatment | :03:45. | :03:48. | |
on their behalf. This week we have been bombarded | :03:49. | :03:51. | |
by the news on all channels telling us what is wrong | :03:52. | :03:53. | |
with our National Health Service. What you have as the BBC | :03:54. | :03:56. | |
is responsibility in terms of making sure we do not demoralise the staff | :03:57. | :04:10. | |
any more than they already are. I asked a nurse if she was impacted | :04:11. | :04:15. | |
by the adverse publicity seen She looked at me as if it | :04:16. | :04:18. | |
was a silly question. The BBC has spent the last week | :04:19. | :04:22. | |
with intensive wall-to-wall coverage of bad news about the NHS and some | :04:23. | :04:25. | |
important things are needed to be However, the effect | :04:26. | :04:29. | |
of that is to produce a downwards Come on BBC, it is not that we don't | :04:30. | :04:34. | |
need to know about these bad things and they do need addressing, | :04:35. | :04:41. | |
but I think that the benefit of the NHS and our appreciation | :04:42. | :04:47. | |
of it we should hear some Well, the health editor | :04:48. | :04:56. | |
for BBC News has been on the news for much of this | :04:57. | :05:10. | |
week and is here now. Viewers, as you can see | :05:11. | :05:20. | |
from looking at those clips, have felt there's been so much | :05:21. | :05:23. | |
coverage focusing on the negative things, waiting times | :05:24. | :05:25. | |
and cancellations, they wonder whether the BBC is hyping | :05:26. | :05:27. | |
up a sense of crisis? There have been several strong | :05:28. | :05:29. | |
newsline is which we would want to cover as part of our BBC | :05:30. | :05:32. | |
News output. We did some research on waiting | :05:33. | :05:34. | |
times, patients who were waiting longer than 18 weeks in England | :05:35. | :05:37. | |
to get surgery. That is the target, they should | :05:38. | :05:39. | |
be seen for a routine We discovered from our data that | :05:40. | :05:41. | |
nine out of ten hospitals are running at levels that | :05:42. | :05:47. | |
are deemed to be above what is Institute for Fiscal Studies has | :05:48. | :05:50. | |
said that health spending in England has gone up but per person it | :05:51. | :05:54. | |
will start bawling. On Thursday, very bleak figures | :05:55. | :05:57. | |
from NHS England on how the performance in December | :05:58. | :06:03. | |
was the worst since records began and looked like it was going to get | :06:04. | :06:07. | |
worse in January after documents I think it is our job to report | :06:08. | :06:10. | |
on facts and figures In terms of staff morale, | :06:11. | :06:14. | |
I take on board what people were saying there about staff | :06:15. | :06:18. | |
feeling downtrodden because of this. Equally we have had contact, | :06:19. | :06:20. | |
e-mails and calls, from staff who said it is really good | :06:21. | :06:23. | |
that the BBC is focusing on what is really going on, | :06:24. | :06:25. | |
from senior consultants to junior This is what the BBC should be | :06:26. | :06:28. | |
doing and it has not done It is finding that balance. One | :06:29. | :06:42. | |
viewer said that they felt the coverage felt like a downward spiral | :06:43. | :06:48. | |
of despondency and that was so overwhelming that perhaps it needs | :06:49. | :06:51. | |
to be balanced with some coverage that shows the more positive side. | :06:52. | :06:56. | |
There has been quite a lot of positive side. There was a big | :06:57. | :07:02. | |
debate on health involving patients and staff and other health experts, | :07:03. | :07:07. | |
including some patient testimony on the positives they found with the | :07:08. | :07:12. | |
NHS. We have had coverage throughout the week on different aspects of how | :07:13. | :07:19. | |
GPs are coming to terms with the different challenges. The news | :07:20. | :07:23. | |
challenge has reports on innovative schemes to link up care homes with | :07:24. | :07:30. | |
GP practices. There using technology. We tried to emphasise | :07:31. | :07:35. | |
the positives. We had a Yeovil Hospital scheme that aims to look | :07:36. | :07:40. | |
after older patients in their autumn this book facility away from | :07:41. | :07:44. | |
accident and emergency. We tried hard to talk about the positives | :07:45. | :07:49. | |
possible solutions, but equally we have two state the facts which are | :07:50. | :07:53. | |
straightforward. It is a difficult balance and we are holding an | :07:54. | :07:57. | |
important institution to account, and it should be about providing the | :07:58. | :08:01. | |
best possible patient care and the government should make sure it is | :08:02. | :08:05. | |
funded adequately and it is making efficient use of taxpayers' money. | :08:06. | :08:09. | |
Some complaints have been but it is felt the BBC is politically | :08:10. | :08:14. | |
campaigning and saying it is about more funding for the NHS. There is | :08:15. | :08:20. | |
the opinion that the NHS should have more funding, but health spending in | :08:21. | :08:26. | |
the UK as a whole as a share of national income is below France and | :08:27. | :08:31. | |
Germany, it is falling, the ISS during the week have made clear that | :08:32. | :08:36. | |
spending will fall in a way it has never done before in terms of | :08:37. | :08:42. | |
spending per head of population. We have taken those arguments and put | :08:43. | :08:45. | |
them forward. We have been accused in the past of not addressing lack | :08:46. | :08:51. | |
of funding. We are not being political, we're stating facts. | :08:52. | :08:56. | |
Equally, we have been very clear that there are some who feel the NHS | :08:57. | :08:59. | |
could name more efficient use of their resources and we have | :09:00. | :09:03. | |
reflected that argument, it is not just about money it is about better | :09:04. | :09:07. | |
ways of joining up care, better ways of spending money. It is an | :09:08. | :09:11. | |
important debate and think it is only right to address the issue of | :09:12. | :09:16. | |
funding. Thank you. When is it justified to broadcast close-up | :09:17. | :09:21. | |
images of someone who has recently died? The question was raised after | :09:22. | :09:24. | |
the Newsnight report on Wednesday from a village in Yemen where US | :09:25. | :09:30. | |
special forces attacked and Al-Qaeda compound. Several civilians were | :09:31. | :09:35. | |
killed, including a boy who was showing. This viewer said that : | :09:36. | :10:02. | |
we put that point to BBC News and they told us: | :10:03. | :10:30. | |
Finally, we have almost managed to get through an additional Newswatch | :10:31. | :10:35. | |
without mentioning Donald Trump, but not quite. A programme has been | :10:36. | :10:41. | |
running about his first hundred days in office. Even some of his fans are | :10:42. | :10:48. | |
not happy with this. One viewer wrote: | :10:49. | :11:05. | |
Thank you for all your comments this week. If you want to share your | :11:06. | :11:12. | |
opinions on BBC News or appeared on the programme you can call us or | :11:13. | :11:17. | |
e-mail us using the details on screen. You can find this on Twitter | :11:18. | :11:24. | |
and do look at our website for previous discussions. That is all | :11:25. | :11:32. | |
from us, we will be back to hear your thoughts about BBC News | :11:33. | :11:34. | |
coverage again next week. | :11:35. | :11:35. |