Everyone whinges about work. Most of us in employment can be relied upon to regularly declare ourselves cruelly overworked, not to mention grossly underpaid. But if Confessions of a Junior Doctor (Channel 4) was to be believed – and on the evidence presented, it was hard not to – the bright young things of our National Health Service are getting an especially raw deal.

Filmed on the wards of Northampton General Hospital late last year, the series made no bones about where its sympathies lay. Every person featured said the same thing. Junior doctors are horribly overstretched and overstressed – more so than ever before. And it’s a symptom of a greater and more worrying malaise: an NHS that cannot cope with the pressure it is currently under.

The experiences of the three young medics featured in this opening episode were simply intolerable.

You couldn’t want for a more competent and unflappable first-timer than Holly Lomas. On her very first day at work she was plunged into the emergency unit and dealt with everything thrown at her, even when left to manage alone. She was a credit to the five years’ medical training already invested in her.