I think – TV historians, please correct me if I am wrong – the great British love affair with the behind-the-scenes hospital docuseries began with Jimmy’s, which followed the staff and patients going about their business at St James’s University Hospital, Leeds. It was warm and lovely and life-affirming, with a bit about the pressures Thatcherite reforms were placing on everyone thrown in to cut the schmaltz. And that has been the template ever since. Focus on the good while acknowledging the bad, and keep the ratio as positive as you can without being accused of Pollyannaism.
To my knowledge, 999: The Critical List is the first of its kind to show a doctor losing control in front of a patient. It is as revealing a sign of where the NHS is now as any waiting list statistic. It comes when Julie, a patient in terrible pain from a perianal abscess caused by her chronic bowel disease, is told by registrar surgeon Oladele Situ that she has to wait yet another day for surgery as she has been displaced again by people in even direr need. Resources do not permit anything like enough operations, even in awful circumstances, to be done per day. “When do we get to the point that I’m prioritised?” she cries in distress. “We understand,” says Oladele. “We apologise.” It is heartfelt. The stress already audible in his voice evolves into desperation as he assures her, “We have been on our feet all day. We are stretched to the thinness. But never think that you are not important to us … You are the reason we come to work every day.” By the end his voice is cracking. He seems to be on the verge of tears.
