TV preview: Life on the Ward

Life on the Ward, a two-part series for BBC One, follows ex-politician Ann Widdecombe, medical journalist Michael Mosley, reporter Stacey Dooley and Paralympic gold medallist Jonnie Peacock as they work alongside members of the hospital teams. They will learn from the people who know it best, experience the real challenges faced by NHS staff and explore what drives them to deliver outstanding levels of healthcare today.

From the bed managers juggling the complex logistics of finding beds for a never-ending tide of patients, to the healthcare assistants who aid the teams of nurses and doctors, each of our recruits gains unique access to a different part of the hospital.

Michael Mosley trained to be a doctor in the early 1980s. Thirty years on, he joins the army of junior doctors and the Resus team (the resuscitation area) in the incredibly busy Emergency Department.

Stacey Dooley spent years in and out hospital as a child because of a heart murmur. At King’s she gets a chance to work in the hospital’s heart attack centre – the first in the country to treat heart attacks while they’re taking place.

Ann Widdecombe worked as a domestic in a cottage hospital while a student in the 1970s, and she was Shadow Health Secretary in the late 1990s. At King’s College Hospital she works alongside nurses in Urgent Care, changes bedpans and tries to manage the daily bed crisis in A&E.

Jonnie Peacock had meningitis at the age of five and lost his lower right leg as a result. He had almost a dozen operations but has no idea what goes on in theatre. Now, working alongside theatre support workers, he’s able to find out.

Life on the Ward, BBC One, Thursday, 9pm