Now that Call 111 has gone live, Dr No has sent a team of his crack undercover reporters into 111 call centres to discover how the new service is working.
The following is a transcript of a secret recording made at a call centre located somewhere in the South of England.
A 111 call centre, with two operatives with headsets on at desks with computer screens. Op-A is taking a call from a patient; Op-B is taking a break; his screen has flashing betting odds on it. We overhear the conversations…
Op-B: I didn’t quite catch that. Did you say the 1:11 at Aintree?
Op-A: That’s right caller, 111 Braintree here, what’s troubling you today?
Op-B: Number 2, Hot To Trot, followed by Rimfire.
Dr No gazed in open-mouthed if not toothless wonder as the first episode of Frankie (BBC1) unfolded last night. Not content to be the life and soul of the party, Frankie, a SuperNurse for the time being on the district beat, is the life and soul of the known universe. In a script that pasted it on like a bricklayer mortaring a wall, Frankie was given lines to assist even the dimmest viewer to a full comprehension of Frankie’s awesome powers. When cutbacks have ordinary doctors and nurses quivering, what does Frankie do? Why, she laughs at the cuts! When a cut of a literal sort threatens to come her way in the hands of a demented war veteran, she turns the other cheek. Nothing is beyond the toothless wonder’s extraordinary powers. When a child arrests in her car, Frankie becomes paramedic and then emergency ambulance driver; later, she turns her hand to a spot of midwifery. Dr No suspects Frankie has a fold-up operating theatre in the boot of her car, and in later episodes will turn her hand to a spot of surgery. Nothing is beyond Frankie for, as she told at least one gagging viewer, ‘the world is her patient’. When not fixing the world, Frankie likes to turn up the stereo, and dance, turning the show into a musical: Frankie Goes To Bollywood. Truly, nothing is beyond Frankie, but then, Dr No supposes, that is what happens when you have done Torchwood. Even Captain Jack has been turned into a shadow of his former self, a hapless plod who’s always got the wood, but never gets his way, because every time he gets his pecker out, Frankie’s away.