Finlay Milne

Ambulance: Series 2

Ambulance: Series 2: Episode 6

Ambulance

BBC One

BBC One is a TV channel that started broadcasting on the 20th April 1964. It replaced BBC Television.

Series 2

Episode 6

BBC One - Ambulance, Series 2, Episode 6

Justin helps deliver a baby, goes to a prolific caller and surprises a drunk patient.

West Midlands Ambulance Service paramedics deliver a baby, deal with prolific callers and surprise a drunk patient with their unexpected language skills.

Crewmates Justin and Dawn's first job of the day is a call to a woman whose waters have broken - Dawn hates delivering babies, but Justin loves them and within just a couple of minutes of arriving he has delivered the baby. Justin reveals he used to be a butcher, but this job makes him feel self-worth that he had never felt before.

When Justin and Dawn are dispatched to their next patient, it's a name all too familiar to them. The woman has called 999 four times already that day and is one of a handful of prolific frequent callers staff across the ambulance service all know well. Although she has carers, like many such cases, her support workers are not available out of hours so it falls to the ambulance service to go round to reassure her. As they leave, Justin reflects that nowadays the paramedic role feels like they are 'social workers with first-aid skills'. It won't be their only visit to the woman this evening. 

With pubs and clubs beginning to close, Justin and Dawn are called to a very drunk male in the city centre. Justin employs his unexpected Punjabi language skills, picked up from his days as a waiter in a curry house, to help coax the nearly incoherent man off the floor.

In the control room, another of the region's most prolific callers is on the phone saying he is having an epileptic fit. A past brain injury affects his behaviour and he is one of 50 patients in the West Midlands who have to have police to accompany the ambulance crew every time they attend. This man has called 999 six times already that day but when the crew arrive, they find he is running low on medication and food supplies. 

Natalie and Nat are dispatched to Jean, who hasn't left the house in over a year as the family haven't been able to afford to pay for a ramp to be installed. It takes five crew and the daughters to help her out to the ambulance so they can take her to hospital for some much needed tests. 

Whilst a crew are sent to deal with a suspected deceased male that no one has spotted for two weeks, Darren and Mel are dispatched to the male repeat caller again. They are the 274th crew to have been dispatched to him in the past three months, along with a paramedic officer and the specialist mental health car. The man does not need to go to hospital despite his assertion that he will die if they don't. Like most of their frequent caller cases, it is not a medical emergency but as the crews discuss the challenges of the case outside, they can't see an easy solution - he needs better support but frequently refuses that, as is his right, so it becomes a vicious circle. Justin reflects that the role of the ambulance service has changed, with the ageing population, spiralling demand for social care and cuts in funding, more than ever they are being for called for non-emergencies.

Hospital

Hospital: Series 5: Episode 2

BBC Two

BBC Two is a TV channel that started broadcasting on the 20th April 1964.

Hospital: Series 5

Series 5

Episode 2

BBC Two - Hospital, Series 5, Episode 2

A 15-strong team try to save the life of a young man who has been stabbed in the chest.

Documentary. In Aintree Hospital’s major trauma centre, a 15-strong team are trying to save the life of a young man who has been stabbed in the chest – one of three stabbings to arrive during the day.

As figures for knife crime nationally hit a record high, Merseyside has seen a doubling in the last five years. In Aintree Hospital’s major trauma centre, a 15-strong team are trying to save the life of a young man who has just arrived by emergency helicopter. He has been stabbed in the chest – one of three stabbings to arrive during the day. After the patient is sedated, the medical team scan him to find the full extent of the internal damage that has necessitated a transfusion of eight units of blood. This reveals that the weapon has reached the patient’s heart and caused bleeding into its protective sac, preventing his heart from beating properly. With his life hanging in the balance, the patient is blue-lit 15 minutes across the city to the Liverpool Heart & Chest Hospital for emergency open heart surgery. A cardiac surgeon needs to release the pressure around the patient’s heart and repair the damage that the weapon has caused.

Three and a half miles away in the heart of the city centre, the Royal Liverpool University Hospital provides emergency care for ten of the most deprived areas in the UK. The Royal deals with an increasing number of regular attenders or ‘frequent fliers’ – patients who return multiple times and who put extra strain on the system. Alongside unprecedented demand in A&E, there has been a nationwide increase in violence against staff. The Royal alone has a team of 39 security personnel, providing round the clock protection at a cost of nearly £1.5 million annually.

Clinicians and security staff find themselves once more dealing with a regular attender who has an unenviable track record of aggression towards hospital employees. The homeless man has been coming to the Royal’s A&E for as long as many staff can remember – at least 18 years. Clinicians deal with him with patience and dignity, giving him somewhere safe and warm in the department to sleep off his alcohol or substance misuse. But with over 130 incidences of aggression towards staff over a seven-year period, he is finally given an ultimatum – stop abusing staff and the system or face a year-long exclusion. Since 2012, NHS Trusts have had the legal right to withhold treatment from violent or abusive patients.

As pressure continues in the department, Les, an elderly man with a serious cardiac problem, is brought in. Due to lack of space, he is cared for on a trolley in the corridor for nine hours. A&E managers try to find patients who can be discharged to create space on wards before a place is found for Les – 27 hours after he arrived in the hospital.

As the Royal’s A&E struggles to cope with pressure at its front door, across the city in Aintree Hospital’s specialist ventilation unit, 47-year-old Stephen, a patient with motor neurone disease, is trying to leave. Despite the debilitating and progressive nature of his disease – he can no longer breathe, talk or eat - Stephen is hopeful that he can return home. Stephen has been a patient in Aintree for 16 weeks but he has been ready to leave the hospital for over a month. Putting the complex NHS-funded, 24-hour care package in place to facilitate this is proving hard. After determining the medical equipment needed to allow Stephen to survive away from the ward, he goes for a challenging trial in the hospital grounds. The eye-gaze computer that allows him to communicate does not function effectively outside, and Stephen struggles to cope with the emotions of leaving the ward for the first time in four months. He begins to lose hope that he will ever get home, let alone for Christmas.

Hospital is a co-production with the Open University.

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