The NHS is dying; Max, for god's sake, get it into resus. No room? There must be room - this is the nation's saviour, the flagship that Britain hangs on to, and the stalwart paragon of great British socialism. But Max we must save it.
Casualty is the BBC's own grown hospital drama. These ... Read review
Advantages: Great cast, great scrptwriting Disadvantages: Is it propaganda
The NHS is dying; Max, for god's sake, get it into resus. No room? There must be room - this is the nation's saviour, the flagship that Britain hangs on to, and the stalwart paragon of great British socialism. But Max we must save it.
Casualty is the BBC's own grown hospital drama. These days however it is more to do with political drama, than hospital drama. After watching another gruelling episode of death, stress and caring, I can ... ...blatant at being a New Labour advertising tool. Tonight Casualty was bought to its knees. Corridors had become full and Casualty could no longer cope with the flotsam and jetsam of Britain's health service. All very dramatic and harrowing, and Max had to close Casualty.
The coincidence is all too apparent. On Wednesday next is Gordon Brown's awaited budget. The budget that, he has promised, will outline his prescription for saving ... more
The NHS is dying; Max, for god's sake, get it into resus. No room? There must be room - this is the nation's saviour, the flagship that Britain hangs on to, and the stalwart paragon of great British socialism. But Max we must save it.
Casualty is the BBC's own grown hospital drama. These days however it is more to do with political drama, than hospital drama. After watching another gruelling episode of death, stress and caring, I can only come to one conclusion. The BBC has finally become blatant at being a New Labour advertising tool. Tonight Casualty was bought to its knees. Corridors had become full and Casualty could no longer cope with the flotsam and jetsam of Britain's health service. All very dramatic and harrowing, and Max had to close Casualty.
The coincidence is all too apparent. On Wednesday next is Gordon Brown's awaited budget. The budget that, he has promised, will outline his prescription for saving the NHS. A prescription that many pundits are prophesying that will mean the end of low taxation. Never fear though, increased taxes will; we are assured, save our ailing health service. So the BBC helps out. Over dramatize the worries of the middle classes, and soften them up for the blow that will come. I have been sceptical about claims that the BBC was in New Labours pocket, but now I am agreeing.
Tonight's episode was over the top. Wards full, with bed blockers. The waiting time to be seen got over 6 hours. The staff dropping like flies with the Norwalk vomiting virus and overwork and patients had to be treated in ambulances in the parking lot. The staff had to lie about the death of a patient to cover up there inadequacies and management started to see the toll all this was taking on the staff. The plot was taken straight from the Daily Mail's daily tirade about our third world health service, and it worked. Everyone who watched it must have been moved to tears as the old man with cancer died in the corridor and the staff nurse who started that day had to comply with Charlie’s request to lie to the relatives. Is it really like this in our hospitals? Well, yes it is. But it has been like this for a long time now and my concern is why we are being shown the dark side now. Up till now casualty staff have risen above the politics and focussed on what every one who works in the NHS does to the best of their ability. That is getting on with the job of dealing with patients. Why usually on busy days like today the staff manage to solve a deep and complicated social problem. Not tonight, though. They just could not cope.
Propaganda takes many forms. Clever propaganda is that which the viewer does not even realise is propaganda. Churchill was the master of this. Remember the directors of the BBC have all recently been replaced with New Labour spin doctors and they have now started to get to work on casualties doctors.
I can assure you that despite the promises most of the cash that is earmarked for the NHS gets swallowed up before it gets to patient care. It gets spent on new management schemes to cover up the deficiencies of the NHS. It does not provide more doctors and Nurses it provides more people with clip boards making targets that are achievable, scoring parameters that prove those targets and then reworking the statistics to prove that the NHS is getting better, when patently it is not. Just two weeks ago it was leaked that there are 210,000 NHS managers, 196,000 NHS beds, 120,000 nurses and 60,000 doctors. For the first time in the history of the NHS there are more managers than beds. Any tax rise next week will only make this worse. How can the state of our hospitals be so bad when around each bed there are 1.1 managers?
More money is needed for patient care, it is true. But it must get to the patient and not to those who are creaming it off. It must go towards getting and keeping more doctors and nurses. It must go to increasing bed capacity and not go towards spurious targets that have more political meaning rather than patient cantered improvements.
This used to be Charlie Fairhead's constant refrain. But, it would seem, even he has taken to dealing with just getting by. Even he has become a master of the cover up, to support an ailing system at the expense of the conscience of his loyal and dedicated staff. That would never happen under Tory rule.
The actors did their job fantastically. They helped us all live the desperation that the NHS has become. The script writers fulfilled their brief fantastically, and I am sure many of you will comment that I am ranting and exhibiting signs of paranoia. But I question the timing and the motives. I am sure we will see a tax raising budget and I am sure that many of you will feel better about that. It is a good cause you will say. Yes it is a good cause, but we spend much more than other places yet we have very much fewer clinical staff. The care we get is appalling yet all we seem to care about is that there is a better management. Please be aware that better management does not mean more management. I am happy to pay more in tax if it means a better heath service. Better must, however, be judged at the patient level and not by a spurious measurement of how many aspirin have been prescribed last year. We need to start seeing reports in the newspapers of happy patients grateful for the fantastic results the hospitals have achieved and we need to see casualty return to the halcyon days of solving all the problems of their patients. Then we will know that taxes have saved the NHS.
Advantages: Realistic and enjoyable Disadvantages: Don't eat while you watch it!
...a long-running TV drama on BBC1 in the 'traditional' time slot of 8pm-ish on Saturday evening. I've been pretty much an avid viewer since it began, oooh, I'm guessing at about ten years ago. Set in the Accident and Emergency department of fictional Holby City Hospital, it details the trials and tribulations of both staff and patients.
Throughout this time it has certainly had its peaks and troughs as far as storylines and characters go but it seems ... ...I remember back in the first few episodes Nurse Duffin/Duffy (played by Cathy Shipton) had a most peculiar and unconvincing West Country accent which mysteriously disappeared after the first series! And I still miss nurse Megan (Brenda Fricker) sorely - but she has moved on to better and bigger roles in the film world! Seemingly a lot of now well-known stars, such as Robson Green (Soldier, Soldier etc), cut their teeth in this quality drama - he ...
blurbubble 28.03.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of BBC1 - Casualty
Advantages: excellent viewing Disadvantages: Cathy Shipton is leaving
...down and tune in to BBC1 on a Saturday night and the chances are that you’ll be watching one of their most popular TV series.
Casualty is set in the fictional town of Holby (Hence the name of it’s now sister programme ‘Holby city’). The programme revolves around the lives; love’s and works of a group of workers in Holby city’s A & E department.
Charlie Fairhead (Derek Thompson) is the man in charge with the title of Clinical nursing specialist. ... ...of this busy emergency department. Charlie was married to the consultant of the department who has since moved (with their son) to Canada. He then had a brief romance with the head of the hospital (Jan Goddard). The department doctors are run by a consultant and his registrar Doctor Kaminski (Chris Colquhoun) Doctor Lara Stone (C. Stephen-Daly) is the doctor who smooth operator Doctor Kaminski pipped to the post for the desired job.
(We won't mention ...
dabmim 06.12.2000 (11.01.2003)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of BBC1 - Casualty
Advantages: Good new and old characters, quality drama. Disadvantages: Occasionally weak plots and can be over dramatic.
This programme seems to have been on forever but that's not to say that it has gone on too long. Casualty is the perfect Saturday evening drama series, the storylines are realistic and full of suspense and all the actors play their parts brilliantly. Some of the characters have been around for years like Charlie Fairhead and Duffy but Casualty's strength is that they continually introduce new members of staff with different personalities and problems ... ...additions is Patrick played by ex Emmerdale actor Ian Kelsey. Compared to his character in Emmerdale Kelsey is a revelation and proves that there is life after soaps. Patrick is the person we all love to hate with his poor attitude to both patients and staff but as his character has developed he has shown he is not always Mr Nasty and underneath the surface there's probably a nice guy trying to get out. A special mention should go to the make up ...
mickb 09.03.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of BBC1 - Casualty
Casualty, the Beebs long running medical drama series, is set at Holby General Hospital. It follows the day to day events of an Accident and Emergency department. Doctors and nurses battling to save lives. A little blood and gore. What I have written so far amounts to nothing less than doing a severe injustice to a program which stands out as one of the BBC's best productions. It is true to say that Casualty is a medical drama. It is true to say ... ...Patients admitted to the department recieve medical attention from the doctors and nurses. But, the ultimate goal of saving lives is perhaps just a theme for the underlying social and moral issues that are dealt with.
Each episode of Casualty unfolds into a number of individual stories. The beginning of each program introduces the characters who will, for whatever reason, end up in need of care. The focus on each person gives an insight into their ...
wiggglypufff 01.01.2001 (02.01.2001)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of BBC1 - Casualty
It used to be that the only time I'd watch Casualty was when I had nothing else better to do on a boring Saturday night, but now I'm absolutely hooked and wouldn't miss it for the world! The programme is set at Holby general hospital and charts the highs and lows of the nurses and doctors who work there.
It's dramatic and full of tension. You know something's going to happen to the extras, but the beauty of it is you never quite know what. In the ...
reh 15.09.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of BBC1 - Casualty
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