Hospital (BBC2, 9pm)

FILMED over six weeks during the past three months, Hospital is the story of the NHS in unprecedented times.

Edited and broadcast within weeks of filming, this timely six-part series for BBC Two will capture the day-to-day realities facing the NHS right now.

With exceptional access to one of the UK’s biggest and busiest NHS Trusts, Hospital will bring audiences intensely close to the issues and challenges that continually dominate the headlines.

Each episode will show with exceptional candour the ever-increasing demands on the NHS’s services, from intricate and morally complex medical ethics to health tourism; from A&E overcrowding to cancelled operations.

Shown from multiple perspectives and for the first time, the audience will see the dilemmas and decision-making which happen every day for the consultants, surgeons and bed managers, all of which have profound consequences for patients and treatments.

Crews shot across five hospitals in Imperial College Healthcare Trust London to understand the complex decision making and the impact each one can have, following the key decision makers as they attempt to care for nearly 20,000 people every week. But standing in their way are limited resources, an increasing number of emergency patients and a clock that never stops ticking.

Produced in partnership with The Open University, the six-part series, which began last week, has already shown the results are as gripping as any medical drama. Particularly after 67-year-old Simon was shown having an operation to remove a cancerous tumour from his oesophagus, at St Mary’s, in Paddington, but died six weeks later from HLH, which is often caused by an inherited problem of the immune system.

Nearly all of St Mary's 297 beds are occupied, meaning the hospital must discharge patients before it can admit any more – but the reality is not quite so simple.

One new patient is Peter Lai, a 60-year-old retired software engineer who has arrived at St Mary's for a lifesaving operation on an aortic aneurysm in his chest. St Mary's is a centre of excellence for vascular surgery and this is one of the biggest operations they carry out.

It's taken two months to co-ordinate the diaries of the expert team, led by consultant Colin Bicknell, but unless the staff can find a bed for him, there's a chance Peter's operation will not go ahead.

To make matters more complicated, freeing up beds doesn't always come down to medical need. Nurse Sister Alice Markay is trying to discharge a homeless Polish man, but until she can find a translator to explain to him what will happen after he leaves St Mary's, he will have to stay at the hospital.

The hospital is also ready to discharge 91-year-old Dolly, who was brought in after breaking her ankle. She's been at St Mary's for three weeks, but can't move on until a place becomes free in a rehabilitation centre.

Midsomer Murders (ITV, 8pm)

DCI Barnaby and DS Winter discover a dead body surrounded by rabbits that have escaped from a local pet show, after someone deliberately freed them from their cages. At the crime scene, the pair discover that the victim died from a stab wound to the neck, and theorise that the murderer might be a competitor sabotaging the show. Is this a rivalry taken too far or is the killer driven by something darker? Steve Pemberton and Sean Gallagher guest star in the last of the current series.

No Offence (C4, 9pm)

THE second series of Paul Abbott's Manchester-set police comedy-drama continues. As no-nonsense DI Viv Deering (Joanna Scanlan) and impulsive DC Dinah Kowalska (Elaine Cassidy) search for the people who are helping local gang the Attahs, including its fearsome leader Norah (Rakie Ayola), in child exploitation, they uncover tensions within the family that could lead to a breakthrough in the case. However, when the team is called to an armed robbery at a pub in a converted bank, it soon escalates into a life-threatening hostage situation. Elsewhere, PC Jonah Mitchell (Ste Johnson) pursues a man posing as a paramedic.

Viv Hardwick