LIFE SUPPORT: CHANNEL 5 COMMISSIONS PIONEERING HOSPITAL ACCESS DOCUMENTARY SERIES

5 has commissioned Life Support (w/t), a pioneering reinvention of a well-loved TV genre: the hospital access documentary.  The innovative 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 for 5, this 5-part series takes viewers into one of Britain's busiest NHS Trusts with new, dramatically inspired, factual storytelling techniques.

Life Support doesn't just show how medical teams save lives through a documentary lens, it rejects the genre’s key traditional tropes (e.g commentary and interviews) to create compelling and emotional narrative arcs that span across episodes using storytelling lessons drawn from the best medical dramas.  It is factual storytelling, but reinvented - it feels and looks 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. 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.

Bringing the serialised intensity of drama into observing today’s real-life high-pressured NHS, this series delivers an emotionally charged, deeply immersive experience. Life Support (w/t) will build deep investment in all its characters’ lives, their choices, and their fates. 

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.