West Midlands ambulance heroes to share coronavirus stories in new TV documentary
It was a crisis that came suddenly and put huge strain on both the organisation and those relied on to maintain the emergency service.
West Midlands Ambulance Service found itself at the centre of the storm when coronavirus hit the region.
Now a TV documentary will reveal the drama of the outbreak as it happened.
Over the next three weeks, Paramedics: Britain’s Lifesavers will capture the lengths that the service went to in order to deal with the biggest challenge it has ever faced. It will also show the emotional toll it had on many within the service.
During the height of the pandemic calls to the 999 and 111 service run by West Midlands Ambulance Service increased by 400 percent. To ease the pressure, students and volunteers stepped up to join those on the frontline and give something back to the NHS.
It was a logistical headache to meet the demand. But most of all it was a huge strain for paramedics and call centre staff who were operating on the front line.
Filmed across three weeks, the three-part Channel 4 documentary series will be shown at 9pm on Mondays, starting next week.
Cameras captured the daily decisions being made to make sure ambulances could continue to provide urgent medical care to the West Midlands.
The programmes look at many different areas of the trust and tell the stories of some of the staff as they deal with the enormity of the situation faced by the entire trust.
They include new call assessors, student paramedics and retired staff returning to work after the call for additional help.It also shows the work of command teams, education and training, they are all featured in the programmes.
The first programme on Monday shows new call handlers Ollie and Jackie squeezeing five weeks of training into a fortnight in order to step up to help meet demand. Student paramedics Sam and Caitlin have a baptism of fire as they deal with calls involving coronavirus patients, especially when Caitlin falls ill herself.
Trust chief executive, Anthony Marsh, said: “Allowing Channel 4 access to WMAS enables us to show the extraordinary lengths that staff in every part of our organisation went to, to meet the challenge of coronavirus head on. I am immensely proud of the work my staff did and continue to do, every single day.
“The series shows first-hand how amazing they all are and the efforts they went to keep patients safe and save lives despite some of the most difficult conditions we have ever faced.
“I am immensely proud of the way every single person within the trust played a vital role in our response and how those efforts saved lives every single day.”
The programme was made by Dragonfly Film & TV. Series Editor, Pete Wallis-Tayler, said: “We would like to thank all of the incredible staff who were filmed and those who have kindly allowed us to tell their stories.
“This series gives those at home the chance to understand more about the excellent work that went on behind the scenes to respond to the global pandemic.”
Fozia Khan, Commissioning Editor Channel 4 said: “We are very grateful to West Midlands Ambulance Service for giving us this privileged access to document their incredible work and show our viewers the reality of their jobs at this most challenging of times.”
