BBC America takes viewers to hospital

BBC America has picked up a fly-on-the-wall documentary about a busy London hospital casualty department from UK indie The Garden Productions.

The US cablenet will air all 14 episodes of 24 Hours in the ER, which is set in King’s College Hospital in London and debuted earlier this year in the UK on Channel 4.

The programme, originally named 24 Hours in A&E, was filmed over 28 days and captures life in the department through 70 remote cameras.

BBC America will premiere the series on Tuesday September 27 with back-to-back episodes starting at 21.00 (ET).

Each episode focuses on patients who were treated within the same 24-hour period and captures the split-second, life-and-death decisions made by ER staff.

Footage is interspersed with interviews of those involved in each case, and offers an honest insight into their experience of the emergency ward.

The series is exec-produced by The Garden Productions co-founders Nick Curwin and Magnus Temple, who set up the company last year after leaving Dragonfly Film & TV. The latter, a Shine imprint, was created after Lis Murdoch’s company bought out Curwin and Temple’s original factual outfit Firefly. Shine International handles sales for The Garden and struck the deal with BBC America.