Ambulance

This first episode opens with West Midlands Ambulance Service call assessor Shanie as she deals with the cries of a woman in labour. Shanie has just graduated from training, but with a supervisor watching overshe calmly guides the caller through delivering the baby. When she hears the paramedics arrive, she can safely leave the caller and the newborn in safe hands, and is thrilled to have successfully helped deliver the baby over the phone.

West Midlands Ambulance Service sees a spike in trauma cases and must manage problems of the winter NHS crisis that has left patients lying in the corridors of Royal Stoke Hospital.

In an average week, crews across the West Midlands respond to 30 stabbings. Pete and Matt, a specialist trauma team, are called to treat the victim of a brutal knife attack. They carry out urgent medical intervention at the scene in a bid to save the man's life. Paramedics Christine and Chris start their day shift with a man who has collapsed in Worcester town centre after a suspected drug overdose. They give him an opiate antidote to stop him slipping into a coma, but the effect is only temporary. With A&E departments across the region busy, ambulance crews face waiting times of up to two hours before they can hand over their patients. When Jo and Tracey are called to 90-year-old Dennis, who has been vomiting, they want to save him from the inevitable delay at hospital. But GP surgeries are under pressure too. and they can't get through to his doctor. They have no option but to take Dennis to hospital and join the queue.

A day shift with paramedic crews from West Midlands Ambulance Service brings a spike in mental-health cases. Justin and Dawn attend an emergency call-out that comes from a tweet.

A specialist paramedic crew is sent to a shooting and a machete attack, but on this shift apparently lower priority jobs prove just as troubling and more time consuming.

It's the last Saturday night before Christmas and it was always going to be a busy night for the service, with controller Sui having to prioritise stabbing victims and reports of drowning over patients like Betty, whose daughter says she's fine but needs help getting her up having fallen to the floor.

This episode covers two shifts with paramedics of West Midlands Ambulance Service, as Royal Stoke Hospital struggles to cope with the volume of patients being brought in.

This episode follows West Midlands Ambulance Service over three shifts in Staffordshire, where crews are dealing with an increasing number of social issues, drug and alcohol misuse, and mental health patients.