Emergency – Ward 10 Emergency – Ward 10 Emergency – Ward 10 is a British medical soap opera series shown on ITV between 1957 and 1967. Like "The Grove Family", a series shown by the BBC between 1954 and 1957, "Emergency – Ward 10" is considered to be one of British television's first major soap operas. The series was made by the ITV contractor ATV and set in a fictional hospital called Oxbridge General. Growing out of what was originally intended to be no more than a six-week serial (entitled "Calling Nurse Roberts"), the series became ITV's first twice-weekly evening soap opera. "Emergency –
Soap opera only lasted one year. Nevertheless, soap operas gained increasing prominence on UK television schedules. In 1995, Channel 4 premiered "Hollyoaks", a soap with a youth focus. When Channel 5 launched in March 1997, it debuted the soap opera "Family Affairs", which was formatted as a week-daily soap, airing Monday through Fridays. "Brookside"s premise evolved during the 1990s, phasing out the politicised stories of the 1980s and shifting the emphasis to controversial and sensationalist stories such as child rape, sibling incest, religious cults and drug addiction, including the infamous 'body under the patio' storyline that ran from 1993 to 1995, and