Posted: Friday 19 February 2010
To what extent do TV hospital dramas reflect reality? Not much, according to Antony Sumara from Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. He particularly targets BBC dramas, but I doubt they are alone in ignoring good practice, patient confidentiality and attention to hygiene in the search for a gripping storyline, as he claims. Perhaps writers don’t feel that an episode of someone waiting for treatment or extolling the virtues of hand washing will draw those viewers in.
How well versed are you in what you can expect from your hospital stay? Every local NHS organisation is expected to produce a guide to local services and deliver that to all households in their area. This one is from Milton Keynes (PDF).
Have you read the NHS Constitution so you know which waiting times have been enshrined within it – no longer than four hours in A&E, for example? The constitution says that you have a right to be treated with a professional standard of care, though to be fair it doesn’t explicitly say that staff shouldn’t be sorting out their love life in corridors when they’re not treating you.
Bridget O'Connell, Head of Information
I once read an article that said the most realistic hospital-based show was Scrubs, which I found a bit frightening!
I have fond memories of St Elsewhere (where Denzil Washington started out), but I'm probably showing my age....the doctors there certainly didn't hold back on discussing their love lives in corridors!
Pru, could be worse, if you go to the hospital in the States where Dr House works you're guaranteed to be suspected of having lupus or paraneoplastic syndrome!
I view medical soaps as comedy!
I remember 'The young doctors' where the nurses wore hats you could go hangliding in and the doctors were not that young not like the 14 yr olds you see in real A&E.
I LOVED 'Bodies', at times I was cringing but I reckon that's nearer the truth!
Affection for ER [Clooney drooling] and you'd never see a UK doc straddling a patient on a trolley doing CPR whilst being wheeled to the 'OR' - you gotta laugh.
As for mental health in the medical soaps...I give up
I read in Empire magazine that the scene in Robocop where doctors were trying to save the life of Officer Murphy as very realistic. It just goes to show that you don't need to watch Casualty or Scrubs to learn the in's and out's of Accident and Emergency procedures.
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