City Hospital was a medical documentary television series that aired on BBC One from 12 October 1998 until 5 January 2007. It ran over nine series with over 360 hours of film broadcast every weekday from 10 am. It was the successor to The General and initially kept the same location, format and presentation team.
City Hospital was first broadcast live from Southampton University Trust's teaching hospital, Southampton General Hospital but also featured Princess Anne Maternity Hospital. It then moved to London's flagship NHS Health Trust - Guy's Hospital and St Thomas' Hospital in 2002.[1] The show followed real patients and staff and featured daily live-to-air footage of actual surgical operations, as they were being performed. The show's theme tune was an instrumental version of Bruce Hornsby's "The Way It Is". Both The General and City Hospital were produced by Topical Television.[2]
A ratings success, the final series commanded a quarter of all the UK television audience at 10am every weekday - over a million viewers daily.
The programme had unprecedented BBC Audience Appreciation (AI) figures for a daytime broadcast. When viewers were asked which programme they would put at the top of all the BBC programmes they had watched that week, City Hospital consistently scored highly. During the last week of programmes, the AI figure was an almost unheard of 88%. The BBC reported: "Alongside the usual big hitters, the dramas and US imports, the daytime programme City Hospital always wins through with high AIs."
In 1999 Yvette Fielding's boyfriend Karl Beattie, a cameraman on the show, proposed to her live on air. She accepted and the two later married.
Presenters included:
Numerous guest presenters, including celebrities, actors and musicians, made cameo appearances.
Filmed at Southampton General Hospital:
Filmed at Guy's Hospital and St Thomas' Hospital: