5 has commissioned Life Support (w/t), a “pioneering reinvention” of the hospital access documentary.
The new series uses the “techniques, structure and emotional intensity of scripted television to present real life, in a high-pressure medical environment in a totally new way.”
Produced by Brinkworth Productions, the 5-part series takes viewers into one of Britain’s busiest NHS Trusts with “new, dramatically inspired, factual storytelling techniques.”
Life Support “rejects the genre’s key traditional tropes” like commentary and interviews to create “compelling and emotional narrative arcs that span across episodes using storytelling lessons drawn from the best medical dramas.”
5 says the series will feel and look like drama – “using characterisation, cliff hangers, cameras, lenses, music and editing in the way scripted television highlights emotional highs and lows.”
It will track a ‘cast’ of patient 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.” 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.”
Life Support (w/t) follows patients and staff at Royal Stoke University Hospital, from the minute they are brought into the hospital system, through the immediate aftermath and days or weeks of recovery.
Guy Davies, Consultant Editor for Commissioning, 5 said: “Life Support (w/t) 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.”
Malcolm Brinkworth, CEO of Brinkworth Productions added: “Character-driven and meticulously constructed, Life Support (w/t) will fuse the rawness of real medicine with the narrative force of character led drama – a cross-hospital series where every choice matters, every case lingers, and every story stays with you long after the credits roll.”
Dr Simon Constable, Chief Executive at University Hospitals of North Midlands, which runs Royal Stoke University Hospital, commented: “We’re incredibly excited to continue our partnership with Brinkworth Productions, whose work on 999: Critical Condition showcased the very best of what our staff do every day.”
“We are hoping this new documentary will not just demonstrate the clinical expertise across our Trust, but the human strength, resilience and teamwork that underpin every patient journey. We’re proud to open our doors to a production that pushes boundaries while staying true to the heart of the NHS.”
The 5 x 60’ series was commissioned by Guy Davies, Consultant Editor for Commissioning, 5.
Executive Producers are Susanne Curran, Xander Brinkworth and Malcolm Brinkworth. Series Director is Bart Corpe and Series Producer isTom Wilde.
Jon Creamer
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