PICK OF TODAY’S TV

SAVING SA LIVES IN LEEDS, 9PM, 9 BBC2

FITTING into the slot vacated by Surgeons: At The Edge Of Life, L which finished last week, this th new medical series is based bas at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals Hosp NHS Trust. But this observational documentary is not just about the surgeons (such as Kenan Deniz, Sheila Fraser, Adelle Fishlock, Joe Aderinto and Ryan Mathew, pictured). Although high-risk, world-leading operations are undertaken, we also get a clear understanding of the daily grind of running the hospitals, of juggling beds and prioritising overstretched resources. And mixed in with these challenges are the personal stories of the patients. Tonight, we meet Jamie, who has waited two years for a double hand transplant and, at the children’s orthopaedic surgery unit, we learn about youngsters for whom Covid delays have turned small operations into larger ones. On-screen graphics reveal the size of the waiting lists in each department — in children’s orthopaedic, it’s 202 — which helps to bring home the pressures everyone is under. Despite all this, both staff and patients remain surprisingly buoyant, with all of them meeting the challenges head on.