Medical docuseries are on TV all the time – in recent weeks we’ve had Surgeons: At the Edge of Life and Saving Lives in Cardiff on the BBC alone, while a new series of Ambulance starts next week. The Critical List attempts to set itself apart by focusing on the ever-evolving list of seriously ill patients who need urgent surgery over a 72-hour period in the hospital.
Nikki Tingle co-ordinates the hospital’s critical list (Photo: Channel 4)
It might sound serious, but he’s not at the top of the list. That position belongs to six-year-old Freddie, who is on the children’s ward waiting to have a dental abscess removed. As a young child, he’s bumped up into pole position – a move helpfully illustrated by a graphic of his name moving up a list. Children are prioritised, says Tingle, because they don’t understand having to wait and it’s tough for them not to eat or drink for hours before a procedure. “I don’t know how I’d cope with being on the list,” she adds.
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Take 55-year-old Tanzeem, who has three needles embedded in his neck from drug use. Should he be deprioritised because his injuries are self-inflicted? Some might argue so, and Tanzeem himself doesn’t trust that the doctors are taking him seriously – not about the needles, but about his chronic stomach pain, which drives him to inject. It’s difficult to say whether he’s right, but he is put at the bottom of the list.
Tanzeem is put on the critical list when he is admitted with needles in his neck (Photo: Channel 4)999: The Critical List is refreshing in its clinical approach, focusing less on the emotional stories of the patients of the Royal Blackburn Hospital in favour of an insight into how the place is run. Instead of coming across as uncaring or sterile, the programme is a testimony to just how much strain the NHS is under. Wait times are hours – if not days – long, beds line the hospital corridors, and staff are working all the hours God sends.
‘999: The Critical List’ continues next Monday at 9pm on Channel 4
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