OU on the BBC: A Picture of Health - About the programme

Production team

A picture of health is a sixty minute documentary on a day in the life of the National Health Service. On Wednesday November 13th 2002, nine NHS workers were followed for the day by nine film crews.

They followed …

• a general practitioner in the north of the Shetland Islands on her daily rounds
• a consultant paediatric anaesthetist in Children’s Intensive Care in Belfast working with a child who has bronchiolitis
• a cleaner and a porter in Bury St Edmunds on their daily shift
• a sister-in-charge of a rehabilitation ward for older people in Andover; many of the people on her ward are still there because of ‘delayed discharge’
• a health visitor working in the community in Liverpool
• a neurosurgeon carrying out complex aneurysm surgery in Newcastle
• a midwife assisting with a Caesarean birth in Leeds
• a senior nurse in A&E in Redhill
• a paramedic working with the Essex Air Ambulance - we see him as he goes to the help of a young child who has been burnt and a woman with a suspected heart attack.

The film starts in the morning and ends very late at night, cutting between the different stories. The aim is to see what our NHS is really like – by seeing it through the eyes of those working for it.

On the day a birth was filmed, but another film crew also witnessed the death of a young woman in Casualty. The film crew in Newcastle recorded a delicate and highly technical piece of microsurgery. The film crew in Andover recorded the simple struggle of trying to find an appropriate nursing home for an elderly lady who has been in hospital for almost a year.

Through these interwoven stories the film gives a sense of the scope and scale of the NHS and the day to day successes and difficulties of our health service.

First broadcast: Tuesday 22 Apr 2003 on BBC ONE

A Picture of Health in more depth: