Hospital Series 4

Episode
Episode 4
Broadcast Info
2019 (58 mins)
Description
Filmed between October and December 2018, as the impact of the collapse of the multinational construction company Carillion is felt across the NHS and other public services, Hospital is the story of the health service in unprecedented times. Now in its fourth series, the award winning Hospital, for the first time, charts the day to day life of six NHS Trusts across an entire city - Liverpool - whose hospitals have a catchment area covering more than two and half million people, stretching beyond the city to North Wales, Cheshire and to the Isle of Man. Edited and broadcast within weeks of filming, this six-part series for BBC TWO will once again capture the day-to-day realities facing the NHS right now. Hospital will bring audiences close to the issues and challenges that continually dominate the headlines. Alder Hey Children’s Hospital has a world class reputation for cutting edge procedures in treating congenital heart defects. Children from across the North West and Wales are referred to the three heart surgeons who operate in the country’s first hybrid theatre, in a paediatric stand alone centre, capable of high tech imaging and surgical procedures at the same time within different specialities such as heart, brain and spinal surgery. But when the number of seriously ill children increases across Alder Hey, the hospital’s status escalates to ‘red’ - when capacity is at a critical level. Intensive Care is full and has to close to new admissions. There are no free paediatric intensive care beds across the whole of the North West. Before the cardiac team can go ahead with an operation they must secure an intensive care bed for each of their young patients for when they come out of surgery. Despite aiming to perform four hundred operations a year, there are over eighty children on the cardiac surgeons’ waiting list. When the twenty one bed intensive care unit is at capacity operations must be cancelled. Staffing pressures mean the Intensive Care coordinator has to take on the responsibility of four team leaders on the unit. When a crash on the motorway between Manchester and Liverpool closes the route to work for many hospital staff, the already stretched clinical teams push on into double shifts. Scheduled operations are cancelled to make way for the emergencies. The three paediatric cardiac surgeons stand down and wait. For two weeks running this world class team has managed less than half of their scheduled operations. Casey-Jack is only hours old. He was born with a congenital heart defect, discovered during his mum’s twenty week scan. He has a hole in his heart and a damaged main artery. He has arrived at the Alder Hey for an operation to repair his heart, no bigger than a strawberry, as one consultant describes it. But when Casey-Jack suddenly crashes, he is rushed to Intensive Care, taking the one remaining bed. Hence, ICU is full. Five year old Aaima arrives at the hospital for a scheduled third and final heart operation to redirect a vein to improve the blood flow. After her first operation she had a cardiac arrest. She, too, needed an emergency intensive care bed. Her parents have driven 40 miles from Manchester but with Casey-Jack’s sudden deterioration, Aaima’s reserved post-op ICU bed has been taken and the unit is full. The family must go home. Aaima is booked in for two days later. When the family return, there is no ICU bed again. Aaima will have to come back for a third time as the Alder Hey team work to ensure, this time, a bed will be free. Three month old Edith urgently needs surgery, she only has half a functioning heart. Her lungs can’t get the oxygen they need from her undeveloped arteries. She is on a machine supporting both organs. Edith hasn’t taken an unassisted breath for almost a month. Even for these specialists this is not a routine operation as they try to widen and scaffold the narrow arteries. They will completely stop Edith’s tiny heart to reduce the risk of a fatal bleed. There is a fifteen to twenty per cent risk that she may not survive but this eleven hour operation is the only chance she has. Shown from multiple perspectives, audiences witness the complexities of the dilemmas and decision-making, which happen every day for consultants, surgeons and managers and the impact these decisions have on patients. Against the backdrop of historic demands stemming from limited resources, increasing patient numbers and social care at full stretch, the series will show the extraordinary work of some of Liverpool’s 20,000 NHS hospital staff as they push the boundaries of what is possible with world class, cutting edge treatments and life-saving operations.
Genre
Medicine; Business Studies; Science; Biology; Health and Social Care

How to cite this record

The Open University, "Hospital Series 4". https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ou/search/index.php/prog/232822 (Accessed 10 Jan 2025)