IT was national smile day on Friday.

Hope you enjoyed it, but there’s not been much to smile about recently.

It’s hard to smile when you hear about a man in Las Vegas trying to shoot as many people as possible for no apparent reason.

And you may have felt reassured to hear that a car knocking over 11 people was ‘only a road traffic collision’ but that’s not exactly cause for celebration is it?

In the midst of all this doom and gloom, I happened to catch an episode of Ambulance, a documentary which is currently featuring our own West Midlands Ambulance Service.

It was a revelation.

Full disclosure though. It’s not a show that’s going to make you smile. You are more likely to cry.

With anger at the prank calls which keep paramedics from helping people with serious injuries or illnesses.

With fear when you see the call operators scratching around for ambulances to send because of the terrifyingly stretched resources, especially at busy times.

And with frustration when you see the common theme running through this – and many other programmes featuring emergency services – that actually what many people who call 999 need is not paramedics or police officers but better social care.

You only have to watch these programmes to see it’s a no brainer – but it’s not an area we seem to have any answers for currently.

But there is something to smile about at Ambulance – the staff featured.

People tell of having to attend hideous accidents or crime scenes – and that is powerful stuff.

But, for me, the most moving part was when the paramedics didn’t tell an anxious lady, ‘there’ s nothing wrong with you’ but calmed her down and put her to bed.

Or when one made a cup of tea for an aggressive patient, who didn’t need treatment, but did have a multitude of issues that would test the bravest of any of us.

Or the paramedic who was able to reassure a drunk man by speaking Punjabi, after he learnt some of the language so he could say, ‘you’ll be OK’ to people in their hour of need.

In all of those cases, the paramedics could have said, ‘it’s not really us you need’ and, of course, that’s an issue that needs urgently addressing.

But, at that moment when those people felt they needed help, they got it.

And that really made me smile.