A new BBC Two show will follow young people volunteering in a hospital to find out if they can make a real change in the NHS.
The four-part series – which has the working title The Great NHS Experiment and will air next year – was inspired by an existing social care programme in Germany.
It will see a group of 18 to 23-year-olds from all walks of life volunteering at different wards across Royal Derby Hospital, where they will experience life on the NHS frontline.
After training, mentored by senior nurses and matrons, the group will perform real roles such as assisting the crash team in A&E, bed-bathing dementia patients and holding a cancer patient’s hand in their last moments of life.
The series will explore whether the volunteers can take a burden off the staff’s shoulders and help to alleviate some of the challenges and pressures faced by the NHS today.
The group will be living together and the cameras will still be rolling at the end of each day to capture their thoughts, anxieties and revelations about the experience.
David Brindley, head of commissioning, popular factual and factual entertainment, said: “We’re very fortunate to be working with the Royal Derby Hospital on this exciting project.
“Taking its cues from a real world scheme in Europe, it’ll be fascinating to see what impact our young people have on the workings of the hospital, but also to witness how the patient stories alter our volunteers’ perspective on the world.”
The series, made by Blast! Films, is now looking for volunteers.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel