BBC One’s Ambulance returns with crews from Greater Manchester

Senior Paramedic Glyn Hardy and Paramedic Andrea Hardy

Series four of the BAFTA-winning documentary Ambulance returns to BBC One this week with a focus on the work of North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust (NWAS).

Ambulance focuses on the stories behind the sirens during the service’s busiest summer ever, by simultaneously showing the work of the crews on the road and staff in the control rooms who answer over 4,000 emergency calls every day.

The documentary, narrated by Christopher Eccleston, was filmed with crews based in Greater Manchester between May and July 2018. Each episode in the eight part series focuses on the work of ambulance staff and the patients they treat during one particular shift.

Episode one joins control staff and ambulance crews as they deal with 11,000 emergency calls over a busy weekend when 80,000 festival-goers descend on Manchester for the annual Parklife festival.

While the call handlers try to prioritise the calls, husband and wife paramedic crew Andrea and Glynn, based at Sharston, are sent to a road traffic incident on a dual carriageway. With six separate people calling in to report the collision, advanced paramedic Gari and the air ambulance are also immediately dispatched.

At the scene, the victim of the crash has to be cut from his vehicle and the emergency crews need to decide whether his injuries demand that he be sent to a hospital with specialist facilities, even if it is much further away.

Salford based crew, Debbie and Shaun, are dispatched to a man who is unconscious on the street. They arrive to discover that their patient is homeless and appears to have taken a suspect substance. However, he refuses to go to hospital, even though Debbie and Shaun plead with him to go.

Gari is sent to an 85-year-old man who has suffered a cardiac arrest. Despite the best efforts by all the crew at the scene, they are unable to save the man's life, and Gari has to break the tragic news to the deceased's wife.

Andrea and Glynn are called to their final job of the day, a 78-year-old woman who may be suffering from sepsis. However, she refuses to go to hospital, despite Andrea's insistence that she needs to go.

Andrea said: “We knew the patient’s decision wasn’t a wise one and that she would more than likely be admitted to hospital later, but at least then she knew the decision was her own. Patients have every right to make decisions for themselves if they have the capacity to do so.

“We are extremely privileged and humbled that we can be a part of people’s lives during such daunting times. We love our jobs and hope that comes across in the programme.

“Being filmed was fun and daunting at the same time, but we did it to help educate the public and make our families proud.”

Ambulance starts at 9pm on Thursday 18 October on BBC One.