Channel 5 is preparing to air a new five-part medical documentary-style drama that will present real-life stories from one of Britain's busiest NHS Trusts.
The series, currently using the working title Life Support, will employ the techniques, structure and emotional depth of scripted television to showcase real life in a high-pressure medical setting in an entirely fresh manner, according to reports from Wales Online.
Setting and Format
Audiences will be transported into Royal Stoke University Hospital, one of Britain's most demanding NHS Trusts, as the programme tracks patients, their relatives and medical staff through some of the most demanding and emotional periods of their lives. The programme will chart their individual experiences from the moment they enter the hospital system through to the aftermath and the days or weeks of recuperation.
A synopsis promises that audiences will embark upon a "deeply immersive experience" as the episodes progress. It states: "Some patients will ultimately heal and recover but are changed forever; others will face life-altering battles that redefine their futures. And those who care for them will be changed too, with those ongoing and affecting stories being just as important."
Rejecting Traditional Tropes
The series is rejecting the conventional tropes of medical programmes and how staff preserve lives, through elements such as commentary and interviews, and will instead employ a reinvented approach to storytelling. It will look and feel like a television drama, employing techniques such as cliff-hangers, character development, and editing to capture the emotional peaks and troughs experienced by everyone involved.
A description continues: "It will track a 'cast' of patients and medic's personal journeys across multiple episodes, departments and wards across an entire Trust, digging deeper with patients and their families' stories and making the connections with nurses and clinicians' own lives and feelings as they fight to save lives, in a way conventional factual programming never could."
Insight and Ambition
Gaining insight from messages, texts and personal reflections within scenes, Life Support's ambition is to capture the dramatic intensity of medical storytelling in real life.
Commenting on the programme, Guy Davies, Consultant Editor for Commissioning at Channel 5, said: "Life Support is ambitious and unpredictable, a radical reinvention of medical documentaries. We wanted to find a way of taking what viewers love most about the hospital dramas like The Pitt and pull that emotion and intensity into the premium factual space. We're determined to create a new and irresistible type of storytelling in this most popular genre."
