Colin, you might be the proof of why you need to do it, and do it properly. The BBC 'Casualty' portrayal of two breaths and a dozen chest compressions fixes the problem is very, very wrong. Now I, and others here are trained as Rescue Divers, and this showed me that things that are perfectly treatable in a hospital bed are one thing , if they happen 20m underwater, then you are surfacing with a corpse. It's about situation and luck.I think there is a big difference between "mostly useless" and "useless"!
(I would take "might live" over "will probably die" any day.)
To tie back to the OP, and the general point. People expect the NHS to fix everything, and these TV progs only reinforce that. What they don't show is those who turned up beyond help, or those who should have helped themselves. The story of the likeable person who got to be fixed and go to their grandaughters wedding after all is rare.
The truth is that A&E smells of piss and shoot and fear and tears, and anyone who manages to work in that environment is a much better human than me.