Inside Birmingham Children’s Hospital (C4, 9pm)

WITH football again threatening to dominate BBC1 and ITV during the main viewing hours, some will be only too happy to turn elsewhere for an evening’s viewing.

The success of 24 Hours in A&E on Channel 4 has seen the doors of Birmingham Children’s Hospital open for the first time to give production company Dragonfly full unprecedented access to wards and departments. The filming captured life at hospital and allows us access to the often touching stories of youngsters requiring treatment and those who care for them.

As well as giving a glimpse into the medical world, the ten-part series is also following stories inside a family’s home as children continue their recovery and talk about their experiences. To ensure the filming was unobtrusive as possible the hospital arranged for more than 80 of the latest in mobile and fixed camera technology to be fitted so that staff, children, young people and families could attend for appointments without worrying about the presence of cameras.

A total of 50 staff, ranging from emergency consultants to top surgeons, to specialised nurses, technicians and clinical child psychologists, are featured.

Tonight we see the most difficult side of raising a child because two patients arrive in A&E having gone out in the world to do activities and experienced every parents’ fear by injuring themselves. One of them, Evie, aged 13, is rushed into the emergency department having had an accident on a bike trip. There’s also the most difficult aspect of family life, a youngster with a long-term condition. Jack has epilepsy, but somehow would like to start taking part in the world of adults. He has hope. An operation could help, but there’s a risk of brain damage which fill his family with fear... but Jack is keen to try, come what may. Pioneering brain surgery is what he requests to, hopefully, stop his fits.

The other side of the treatment room shows Rene, 16, who can’t face the intensive treatment which might cure her sickle cell anaemia. She has a full blood transfusion every fortnight, but is offered a stem cell transplant which could be a long-term benefit. She feels two months in hospital would ruin her summer and while her parents would love to get involved in the decision, Rene has the final say.

The Centenary of the Battle of the Somme: The Vigil (BBC2, 7.30pm)

LIVE coverage of the vigils being held to mark the centenary of the Battle of the Somme. The Queen and Prince Philip are at the grave of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey, while the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry are in France, attending a service at Thiepval Memorial, which bears the names of more than 72,000 men who died on the Somme and who have no known grave. Huw Edwards presents from Thiepval and Kirsty Young is in London to follow these and other services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as communities come together to remember all those who gave their lives at the Somme in 1916.

The battle started 100 years ago tomorrow and lasted nearly four months, leaving a million men dead or injured.

What Britain Buys (C4, 8pm)

THE retail industry has changed at a rapid pace in recent years. We live in an era of massive choice, where thousands of new products hit the shelves every week – and the Great British public spends £6.7 billion a week on everything from the latest food fads, to clothing, toys, entertainment, and more. So how are our spending habits doled out? And what does it say about our nation? Tonight retail guru Mary Portas continues her look at shopping trends, including the £4.6 billion a year the British public shell out on their pets, Victoria Beckham's headline-grabbing flat shoes, the rising sales of certain 1970s products and the growing popularity of 'she sheds' in response to 'man caves'.

Viv Hardwick