National award for hospital A&E television documentary

A FLY on the wall documentary about the accident and emergency department of Musgrove Park Hospital, in Taunton, has won a national award for filmmaker Andrew Brown.
The judges for the prestigious Medical Journalism Awards said the programme, Emergency Medics, was ‘well filmed and utterly gripping. The programme flowed beautifully with the cameras leaving and returning to the action at just the right moments’.
Andrew spent three months in the department, filming the real-life action of a modern NHS accident and emergency department.
He said: “It is great for the series to win this important award, it is a real testament to the staff and patients who agreed to take part in the series.”
The award was for the second series of Emergency Medics - the third series is currently being broadcast on ITV1 Mondays at 10.40 pm.
The first two series have been seen by more than 500,000 people and are currently being repeated on the Discovery Channel.
Emma George, series producer, said: “These programmes show what A&E is really like - both sadder and happier than the television dramas.
“All life is here and the programmes show the nature of the people and amazing range of conditions treated in an A&E Department.”
Emergency medicine consultant at Musgrove, Dr Paul Baines, said: “This is an excellent department and the staff do an astonishing job every single day.
“Andrew works very professionally and after a while staff almost forget he is here.
“Most patients are happy to be filmed and very happy with the results.
“I hope that these films help the public understand what a modern A&E service is like.”
The accident and emergency department at Musgrove sees about 1,000 patients a week.