24 Hours in A&E - Series 6

Episode 1, Wednesday 7 May, 9pm

The RTS award-winning 24 Hours in A&E returns for a new series, capturing dramatic and emotional stories of love, life and loss on the frontline of the NHS. The series is filmed around the clock at one of Britain’s busiest A&E departments at King’s College Hospital in South London. This episode looks at how A&E is a place where mums and girlfriends show their natural instinct to protect their men. 

Four-year-old Alfie is rushed to King’s with a broken thigh bone after falling off his bike into a sandpit. The medical team are concerned that Alfie may have ruptured an artery, causing internal bleeding.

For Alfie’s mum Toni, it’s a shock. “We just thought he’d just fallen off his bike like he’s done a couple of times before,” she says. “We just couldn’t believe how serious the accident was.” And Toni reveals the reason she is so protective of Alfie - her sister was murdered when she was a child.

19-year-old Chris is brought in from a rugby match in Kent having suffered suspected neck and spinal injuries from a hard impact during the game. He’s experiencing numbness and the injuries look serious, so the medical team perform a series of tests, including a CT scan.

Chris is accompanied by his mum and dad, as well as by his girlfriend, Becky, who stays by his side as they await news. “He’s a big part of my life now and I don’t want that to ever go,” says Becky “What if this changes his life so drastically, that he’s not the same any more?”

Meanwhile 42-year-old James has been brought to A&E by his wife Fiona with chest pains and struggling to breath. While the medical team find out what’s wrong, Fiona and James joke that he is a hypochondriac. But the tests show that they were right to come to King’s.

Series Prod/Dir: John Douglas and Jackie Waldock
Exec Prods: Nick Curwin, Hamo Forsyth, Jonathan Smith
Prod Co: The Garden Productions