RADIO 4’s Today programme has been broadcasting a new series of special reports on the care of elderly people.

This morning’s report provided a powerful reminder of exactly why the BBC is still the best public service broadcaster in the world.

Reporter John Manel told how he had enlisted a 70-year-old woman to go ‘undercover’ in a care home for almost a week - and keep a secret audio diary.

What was utterly enthralling about the report was the freshness of the insights provided by the volunteer, Debbie Davies, trustee of the charity Compassion in Care.

Rather than a predictably hysterical tabloid denunciation of the home, what emerged was a gripping and thoroughly balanced, measured and revealing insight into what seemed a fairly typical care home.

And it was the mundane details secretly recounted by Debbie into her tape recorder that were most powerful: the ‘odd smell’, the lack of fresh air or fruit, the TV constantly switched on, the boredom and loneliness, the early nights - “the earliest I’ve been in bed for years”, the  kind and jolly staff and the next door voice crying-out unheard. “Take no notice - she’s just old,” Debbie was advised.

The human details and the beautifully humane voice of Debbie carried the greatest impact. She said: “I am doing this because I feel at least I can give people who are in the homes a voice. When you are in a home you can’t complain. You are afraid of what might happen to you.”

From Manel’s extremely simple idea came possibly one of the best eight and a half-minutes of radio reporting we are likely to hear this year. And far better than pundits and politicians endlessly ranting at each other.

It’s just a pity that local newspapers seem unlikely to try and repeat this investigative exercise in their own local care homes - presumably for lack of time, resources, commitment or interest.

Part 2 of Debbie’s undercover report is broadcast at 7.30am tomorrow morning. On the Today web site there will also be an extended 20-minute podcast of Debbie’s findings, as well as the views of  the elderly and their relatives. Don’t miss it.