999: What's Your Emergency?

23 October 2013

Last year, Channel 4 cameras followed the work of police, fire and ambulance staff in Blackpool to reveal modern Britain through the eyes of the emergency services.

Now the series returns, but this time its focus is on the emergency service that gets to know us most intimately: the ambulance service. The new series follows ambulance staff across the country who know that every 999 call they race to could be a matter of life or death.

This compelling six-part series reveals how Britain is in more desperate need of help than ever before and that the ambulance service is under huge pressure, with 11 million emergency calls a year and an ambulance dispatched every five seconds at an average cost of £250.

It follows cases from the moment the 999 calls are received, as ambulances are dispatched and the paramedics arrive on the scene. But it also goes beyond to explore why the call was made and find out what happened after the medics left.

Every call out has the potential to change lives forever. Some are medical emergencies, such as heart attacks, accidents and stabbings. But others are more complicated - suicide attempts, self-harming and alcohol or drug abuse – and the result of mental health problems and deep-seated social issues.

Paramedics and call handlers speak powerfully and frankly about the challenges they face (and the Britain they see), while patients and their loved ones reveal the story behind their call for help.

Time and time again, it is falling to the ambulance service to address social, as well as medical, problems. The series reveals how paramedics are now having to act as counsellors, social workers and even friends to those in need.

The series shows how the ambulance service is having to pick up the pieces of a society that appears to be at breaking point in these tough times, including: the growing number of people battling with mental health issues, whose care accounts for an ever-increasing amount of ambulance staff's time; the realities of living with addiction to drink and drugs, affecting a far wider range of the population than usually acknowledged, from young to old and rich to poor; the struggles of ‘coming of age’, from knife crime to excessive drinking; and the challenges of caring for a rapidly-aging population.

Series Editor: David Hodgkinson

Series Producer: Ally Roberts

Exec Producers: Simon Ford, Ed Coulthard

Production Company: Blast! Films