I USED to think the easiest way to get on TV was to audition for Britain’s Got Talent.

Now you’re more likely to appear on prime time telly if you have an accident.

The more interesting an accident the better. If you fall from a ladder while rescuing a cat, get bitten by an adder, or trap your head between park railings, you’re almost guaranteed a spot.

We seem to have become a nation obsessed by all things medical. Hospitals, doctors, accidents and illnesses. Some nights virtually every TV channel is airing a medical-related reality TV show.

Some nights, it’s beyond a joke: 24 Hours in A&E, GPs Behind Closed Doors, City Hospital, Ambulance…the list is endless.

Like any fly-on-the-wall show involving the traumas of ordinary people, these programmes are watchable and interesting. But do we have to have so many?

Recently, I switched on to catch a quiz show attempting to find Britain’s Best Junior Doctors. You can’t get more niche than that. To anyone who wasn’t training to become a doctor, it made for very tedious viewing.

Add to this the host of medical dramas such as Casualty and Holby City, and most nights it’s wall-to-wall hospitals.

It’s all a far cry from when I was young. In the 1960s, the only doctor I remember on TV was the fictitious Dr Finlay in the series Dr Finlay’s Casebook, about an elderly doctor’s life in a Scottish town. He had a secretary called Janet, who was the butt of many jokes among the viewing public.

I disliked it intensely, partly because it was aimed more at an older generation, but mainly because it aired on a Sunday evening and reminded me that it was school the following day.

Later came Angels, a drama series about students nurses, which I remember enjoying, and General Hospital, which could be said to be a forerunner to Casualty, set in a fictional Midlands town, following the romantic and professional lives of its doctors and nurses.

There were foreign imports - Dr Kildare and Young Doctors, but it wasn’t all-consuming. Now, for some reason, our hunger for all things medical on the TV has mushroomed.

I must admit, I wouldn’t be brave enough to appear on Channel 5’s GPs Behind Closed Doors. I get worked up simply booking an appointment, never mind making the whole country party to my concerns.

Yet patients don’t seem to bat and eyelid as they are filmed discussing their worries with their GP. It is sometimes heartrending to watch, especially if it turns out to be something serious and the diagnosis isn’t good news.

Now doctors and patients in Bradford are to feature as the programme enters its sixth series, with the spotlight turned on the first GP practice in the North - Ridge Medical Practice in Great Horton.

Of course, programmes like these play a valuable role in raising awareness of the great work carried out by the NHS, and of other lifesaving services such as the Yorkshire Air Ambulance - the focus of the series Helicopter Heroes - and Emergency Helicopter Medics.

They are also a good fall back is there’s nothing you have a burning desire to watch. Quite often I end up tuning in for this reason. In fact, the number of times I watch medical shows I should be able to diagnose most common ailments as quickly as a trained doctor.

So, in light of all this criticism, would I choose to watch GPs Behind Closed Doors when its focus is on Bradford? Of course. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. No matter what’s on the other side.