PROBLEMS accessing GP surgeries in Bradford were highlighted in front of a national TV audience when a breakfast show came to the city.

BBC Breakfast was broadcast live from the University of Bradford today, with the programme focusing on local NHS services.

The topical magazine show set up camp in the university's Faculty of Health, where its host Bill Turnbull was taken through his paces by student nurses.

And local people got to have their say on the NHS ahead of Thursday's General Election.

After the broadcast, Mr Turnbull said: "The biggest thing that came up was getting an appointment with a GP. A massive issue for them, and it came up repeatedly, time and again, and it was something they are very fed up with.

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"But interestingly, also, one manager said to me, maybe a third of GPs' appointments aren't really necessary.

"So people are going along when they could actually self-medicate."

As part of the programme, Mr Turnbull was given the task of caring for dummy patients in a mock-up ward, under the watchful eye of three final-year nursing students.

Student nurse Leon Hinchcliffe, 20, of Low Moor, said they had taken him through a simulation with a "very interactive" training dummy called SimMan.

Fellow student Serish Khan, 24, of Wibsey, said Mr Turnbull probably needed to do a little more work on his medical techniques.

She said: "He needs a little bit more practice. I think he needs to keep the student nurse uniform on."

And Katy Dunn, 32, of Denholme, said: "I think this gives us really good publicity. I don't think people realise what good facilities we have here."

Mr Turnbull said his attempts at nursing had proved "thoroughly inept", adding that one talking dummy, voiced by an onlooker, hadn't reacted well to his bedside manner.

He said: "The first mistake I made was I put my hand on his chest, and he said, 'First of all, we're not going out, and B, it hurts'."