Confessions of a Nurse

TX: Tuesdays from 24th January, 10pm, More4

Confessions of a Nurse is a documentary series that reveals who cares for us and our loved ones when we're admitted to hospital. Often undervalued and overlooked, these are some of the nurses who wash us, feed us and take care of us when we're at our most vulnerable. They're the human face of the NHS, but what do we really know about them? For the first time, this heart-warming, humorous and highly intimate series allows nurses to confess what they really think about us, their patients and the job they do. Nurses are struggling with the challenge of making their vocation a profession which needs a degree.  We don't listen enough to them about what is really going on in our hospitals; this series now gives us the chance to do so. 

This four-part series follows a diverse group of nurses as they care for the British public filmed at Birmingham City Hospital. They are at the front-line of NHS support, but what do they really think of us, their patients, and the job that they do?  Each episode paints an intimate and revealing portrait of the impact the job has on the nurses' lives and vice versa. Filmed over a year at a major NHS trust, this heart-warming and humorous series follows the day-to-day challenges these key workers face, and finally allows them to confess, for the first time, what they really think about being a nurse.

Throughout the series, we meet all different types of Nurses including Latoya who dreams of life as a super model rather than the £14,000 a year basic pay she receives as a Healthcare Assistant. Straight talking and glamorous Debbie worked as a healthcare assistant for 10 years before she qualified as a staff nurse. Working in the relative ease and gentle pace of a ward specialising in hip and knee replacements, she gets a shock to the system when she's transferred to the orthopaedic trauma ward. And then there is Gemma, a newly qualified nurse in her first 6 months on the job. At just 21, she's faced with sights most of won't see in our entire lives on a daily basis - dying patients, dead bodies - yet she still manages to breeze into work and declare her love for the job.