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Filmed this winter, as A&E waiting times hit their highest ever recorded levels and the impact of exceptional demand is placing the NHS under severe pressure, Hospital is the story of the health service in unprecedented times.

Now in its fifth series, the award-winning Hospital, returns to Merseyside to chart the day-to-day life of six NHS Trusts across the entire city of Liverpool. The hospitals have a catchment area covering more than two and half million people, stretching beyond the city to North Wales, Cheshire and to the Isle of Man.

Edited and broadcast within weeks of filming, this eight-part series for ´óÏó´«Ã½ TWO captures the daily realities facing the NHS right now. Hospital brings audiences close to the issues and challenges that continually dominate the headlines.

Heart disease remains the biggest killer in the UK and every 5 minutes, across the country, someone has a heart attack. Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital’s specialist services are on the frontline of this modern epidemic and are experiencing unprecedented demand for heart disease treatment. But with a national shortage of anaesthetists, particularly highly-trained cardiac anaesthetists, felt acutely at LHCH, it's difficult to allocate enough specialist staff, so everyone can get their operations. With cancellations an ever-present challenge, the hospital (twice rated as outstanding by the CQC) struggles to meet Government ‘referral to treatment times’ and this puts the Trust under pressure to deliver to targets, both for treatment and for the financial bottom line.

In the hospital’s high-tech catheter laboratories, keyhole surgery advances the possibilities for treating the heart, as intricate procedures are done using advanced x-ray imaging. But ensuring the labs are operating at full capacity, is a weighty responsibility. Service Line Manager Danielle juggles the ever-changing operating lists, balancing emergency patients with those who have waited the longest.

81-year-old Joe is an emergency patient whose heart attack has left a hole in his heart that needs closing urgently. He is on the Coronary Care unit, being kept alive by a balloon pump, which assists his heart in beating. He must be scheduled onto the day’s already full operating list. As one of the most complicated patients the clinicians will treat, he faces a complex procedure that carries a high-mortality rate, something that Joe is all too aware of.

Ellie, 28, is one of the growing population of adults with congenital heart disease, who had devices fitted into their hearts as children, and need further procedures as they get older. Already cancelled twice before, she hopes that this time her operation to replace her pulmonary valve with keyhole surgery will go ahead, so she can begin to plan her wedding to Jade. Ellie’s procedure is at the cutting edge of what Cardiologists can do in the Cath lab and if they succeed, it means that Ellie will not face open-heart surgery and will make a much quicker recovery. But with such a risky procedure, a surgeon who specialises in children’s and adult congenital heart problems is on stand-by from Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, in case anything goes wrong.

Third on the day’s list is 68-year-old Sheila, who has a hole in her heart that is causing debilitating symptoms. Just being able to walk, without struggling to breath, would dramatically change her life. As her partner Ray reassures her, Sheila is still fearful of her ensuing procedure but desperate for it to go ahead.

On one dramatic day at Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital, Friday 13th, three patients - two of them, the most complex the hospital treats in a year – are facing their own mortality and hoping for life changing operations.

Shown from multiple perspectives, audiences witness the complexities of the dilemmas and decision-making, which happen every day for physicians, surgeons, anaesthetists and managers and the impact these decisions have on patients.

Against the backdrop of historic demands stemming from limited resources, increasing patient numbers and social care at full stretch, the series will show the extraordinary work of some of Liverpool’s 20,000 NHS hospital staff as they push the boundaries of what is possible with world class, cutting edge treatments and life-saving operations.

Hospital is a co-production with the Open University.

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