EVE TV
Saving Lives in Cardiff (BBC2) 999: The Critical List (C4) Malpractice (ITV)
ONE of the case studies inSaving Lives in Cardiff, the latest in an always long waiting list of NHS observational documentaries, is John, a retired French polisher in his mid-seventies. His emergency surgery for an abdominal aortic aneurysm – or “triple A”, medical shows being partly a jargon class – is complicated by lung damage from the unguents of his profession.
Remarkably, the patient in this storyline – like soap operas, this documentary credits a “story producer” – is the same vintage as the genre he swells. It was in early 1958 that the BBC Television Service (as the corporation’s then single service was called) screened Your Life in Their Hands, billed as “a series of outside broadcasts from UK hospitals”. Though that title lapsed in 2005, the concept flourishes with Saving Lives in Cardiff, coinciding with Channel 4’s 999: The Critical List, a sequel to the previous 999: On the Front Line and 999: What’s Your Emergency?.