How the NHS Changed Our World (BBC2, 7pm)

If you're a non-football fan with an aversion to hospitals, then finding something to watch on terrestrial TV this week might be tough.

That's because not only is the World Cup taking over the schedules, but this week the BBC is launching a series of programmes to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the NHS.

Luckily, most viewers will understand why the BBC wants to mark the occasion. As Head of Current Affairs Joanna Carr says: "Our national health service is one of the most hotly debated, celebrated, and scrutinised British institutions. As the NHS marks a 70-year milestone, the BBC will launch an exciting season of programmes across television and radio looking at the history and the future of the NHS, with the help of independent research think tanks, famous faces, historians and of course, the many staff who work across all areas of the NHS."

Among the highlights this week are Celebrities on the NHS Frontline (BBC1, Thursday), in which four famous faces work alongside the teams at King's College Hospital. The celebs taking up the challenge include journalist Michael Mosley, who trained to be a doctor in the early 1980s and is now learning just how much has changed in A&E since the days when he accidentally sewed his glove to a patient's head.

One of the centrepieces of the season, NHS at 70 - Live, airs on BBC2 on Tuesday. Hosted by Anita Rani and Nick Robinson in front of an audience of staff and patients at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, the programme looks at how the NHS has grown since its inception in 1948 and explores the challenges facing it today.

But tonight we begin with How the NHS Changed Our World (BBC2, 7pm). Showing across the week, this series explores the achievements of five pioneering centres of excellence, and in the process shows how the NHS has been at the forefront of medical advances.

In the opening edition, Dr Giles Yeo learns how the doctors at the Royal Papworth hospital in Cambridgeshire carried out the first successful heart transplant in the UK.

The presenter discovers why doctors and patients had to overcome not just technical difficulties but also some public opposition to what at the time was regarded as a controversial procedure.

He also meets Sandy Law, believed to be the world's longest-surviving recipient, and chats to a celebrity patient, comedian Eddie Large, who gives a moving account of writing to the relatives of the donor who saved his life.

Dr Yeo then gets a tour of the state-of-the art building that will become the hospital's new home later this year.

Subsequent episodes will profile Birmingham Children's Hospital, Moorfields Eye Hospital, John Radcliffe hospital and the work of Tyneside's genetic pioneers.

Each edition is followed by Britain's Best Junior Doctors, in which psychiatric nurse-turned-comedian and creator of Getting On Jo Brand puts teams of medics from teaching hospitals around Britain to the test. The teams with the highest scores will go though to Friday's final.

Britain's Best Junior Doctors (BBC2, 7.30pm)

New series. Jo Brand hosts a quiz in which two teams of junior doctors from teaching hospitals around Britain, with in-house medical expert Dr Helen Lawal on hand to explain the medical jargon. The first heat features University Hospitals of Leicester v Kettering General Hospital, and the contestants tackle an array of rigorous questions ranging from diagnosing a patient's symptoms, prioritising cases in a mock A &E department, and getting stuck in with their chosen specialism, and the teams are competing for the highest score of the week to win a place in Friday's final.

Long Lost Family: What Happened Next (ITV, 9pm)

Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell revisit three more memorable stories of people whose lives have been changed in ways they could never have expected, including Deborah Ozturk who was reunited in Australia with her birth mother Kate - who has a special thank you for her daughter's adoptive mum Betty. The programme also catches up with Mary Davies as she visits her sister Shirley in ireland, and travels to Johannesburg, South Africa, with Vicki Haskell as she spends time with her mother Ann and brother Nick. Last in the series.

Rolls-Royce: The Rise & Fall of a Great British Brand (C5, 9pm)

For many people, it is still a byword for luxury, but Rolls Royce hasn't always enjoyed a smooth ride. This documentary tells the inside story of the engineering company, looking at how the firm founded by Charles Rolls and Henry Royce created the ultimate in high-end car brands and designed the Merlin engine, which was key to the Allied air victory during the Second World War. But it was also the aero engine division that brought Rolls-Royce down, when the ill-fated RB211 jet caused the company to go bankrupt in 1971.