The award-winning series returns charting the day-to-day life of seven NHS Trusts across the city of Liverpool. Operating theatres shut but emergencies continue to arrive as patients are caught up in an extraordinary hospital move.
In Aintree Hospital's major trauma centre, a 15-strong team try to save the life of a young man who has been stabbed in the chest - one of three stabbings to arrive during the day. A homeless man is given an ultimatum by hospital staff.
On one dramatic day at Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital - Friday 13th - three patients, two of them, the most complex the hospital treats in a year, are facing their own mortality and hoping for life-changing operations.
As medical advances save children who a decade ago may not have survived, Alder Hey Children's Hospital faces the challenge of providing ongoing care for these complex patients.
With NHS 'bed blocking' numbers at their highest level since 2017, Liverpool's hospitals are struggling to discharge patients because of a lack of care in the community.
At the UK's only specialist neurology hospital Trust, a doctor strives to secure groundbreaking treatment for patients with a misunderstood but common neurological disorder.
Alder Hey Children's Hospital is home to a world-renowned craniofacial department, one of only 4 in the UK treating life-threatening congenital skull and facial abnormalities.
As medical advances cure patients with cancer, who a decade ago may not have survived, doctors face the challenge of using newer therapies which are not without risk.
Filmed inside the Royal Free London from the first day of the lockdown. With beds in the hospital rapidly filling with Covid-positive patients, doctors are redeployed and ICU doubles its capacity.
The pandemic is approaching its peak and most of the Royal Free London's beds are now filled with coronavirus patients. But with ten per cent of the workforce off sick or self-isolating, it is challenging to provide safe staffing levels.
London's Royal Free Hospital is counting the cost of having to prioritise Covid-19 above almost everything else as they battle to treat the patients left behind. There are growing waiting lists and huge waits for diagnosis and treatment.
It is mid-summer, and the London Free has a target of getting all services back to 90 per cent of their pre-Covid activity and all within strict new infection control guidelines. At Barnet Hospital a clinician tests positive for Covid-19.
The transplant department seizes on a window of opportunity when Covid-19 infection rates are low to perform 3 months worth of transplants in 5 weeks, but then the number of Covid cases begins to increase again.
Autumn, the Emergency Department sees a resurgence of patients after a summer of low attendances. A bed shortage in Barnet hospital highlights the challenge of discharging older patients, and the added complexities of Covid-19 risks.
Coronavirus patients again begin to be transferred to intensive care. This time, the clinicians have more treatments in their arsenal to fight the virus, including experimental drugs and convalescent plasma.
As Covid-19 levels rise again, the Royal Free London prepares to roll out a mass vaccination programme, but it faces a staffing crisis that in turn threatens vital cancer operations.
