Hospital Series 6

Episode
Episode 1
Broadcast Info
2020 (59 mins)
Description
May 2020, at the height of the first wave of the Coronavirus pandemic, BBC Two broadcast two extraordinary films following the staff and patients of the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. Now, award-winning Hospital returns for a sixth series to London’s Royal Free Trust, a world-leader in the treatment of infectious diseases and one of the biggest NHS Trusts in the country. The first episode explores the impact on patients from the NHS having to prioritise their response to the national pandemic above almost everything else. During the pandemic most of the Trust’s work in their three hospital’s was completely halted, other than emergency care, maternity & some urgent appointments, to allow it to cope with nearly two thousand patients with covid. It’s now August and the Royal Free London must enforce strict new covid protocols, including social distancing, covid testing and covid-secure ‘pathways’for patients who enter the hospital. This is to ensure that anyone who is negative is kept separate from anyone who is, or who is suspected to be positive. Despite mounting waiting lists, this means the hospital’s activity is down by 50%. This has caused huge waits for diagnosis and treatment, and despite NHS staff’s tireless efforts, 7,000 patients have now been waiting more than a year for an appointment. Caroline Clarke, Royal Free London chief executive, is aware that the public’s frustration with the NHS will grow, as they fail to get treated on time. Another challenge is that some patient’s health problems have worsened during the pandemic. Since the end of lockdown, the number of patients arriving at A&E with heart attacks has doubled. 74-year-old Mehmed has presented with a heart attack after avoiding hospitals and doctors during covid. His consultant Tim Lockie thinks people are scared to come into hospital, and it’s causing patients to present with much more serious issues than they would have done in normal times. To allow the NHS to continue to operate safely on highly vulnerable patients who needed urgent & complex operations during the first wave of covid, the Government did a deal with private healthcare providers. Put simply, the NHS rented operating tables and equipment, moved their surgeons and anaesthetists in and began operating on their most urgent cancer patients in private hospitals. To date, this has cost the British taxpayers £1.6 billion. 53-year-old Szalbolcs, a university lecturer, was diagnosed with bowel cancer in February. He was due to have surgery to remove his tumour on the day before lockdown but it was cancelled because of covid. In the time he’s been waiting for this operation to be rescheduled, the cancer has now spread to his liver, which must be dealt with first. NHS surgeon Joerg Pollock, a liver specialist for 25 years, is operating on Szalbolcs at the private Princess Grace Hospital in central London. As surgery proceeds, it becomes clear that things are worse than first thought. Although Szalbolcs’operation can go ahead, the Royal Free London is given a month’s notice that they must bring all surgery back in-house, as the deal with the Central London private hospitals is being cancelled as costs spiral. The move could affect 50-year-old Judy’s life-saving cancer surgery going ahead. She is also booked into a private hospital. Diagnosed with bowel cancer ten years ago, the cancer has returned. She now needs a Whipple Procedure to save her life; one of the most complex operations that can be undertaken on the human body. With the private sector deal ending, Surgeon Daren Francis & his team must grapple to secure operating space at the Royal Free Hospital, as all its specialist work is repatriated into the NHS and it goes from performing 13 operations to 107 in a single day. Alongside this, the vital covid-19 testing is beset by problems. Every patient that needs surgery requires a negative result in-order for their operation to begin. Any delays to getting the test results can have huge ramifications, including cancellation. But there are only 13 rapid covid tests available each day. Another Surgeon battling for operating space and ITU capacity is leading vascular Surgeon Tara Mastracci. Tara was unable to operate on her patients at all during the pandemic, as the surgery was too specialist to move into the private hospitals. One of Tara’s first patients at the Royal Free Hospital is 73-year-old Pat, whose operation was cancelled in April. Pat has now been waiting for six months with a potentially fatal aneurysm or swelling on the aorta, the largest artery in the human body. But after a sudden increase in emergency admissions, ITU is full and Tara is unable to begin Pat’s operation without a free bed. If ITU matron Deny is unable to ready and staff extra beds, the operation will be cancelled - again. We follow the human stories behind the headlines of staff and patients, as they grapple with the extraordinary challenge of operating within the new covid-19 landscape.
Genre
Medicine; Business Studies; Science; Biology; Health and Social Care

How to cite this record

The Open University, "Hospital Series 6". https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ou/search/index.php/prog/237754 (Accessed 10 Jan 2025)