History of the National Health Service Emergency Ward 10 was first broadcast in 1957 on ITV and ran until 1967 and followed the life and loves of the staff and patients of the fictionalised Oxbridge General. ITV later followed this up with General Hospital which borrowed much from Emergency Ward 10 in terms of its themes and focus. The idea of a medical hospital as a suitable and popular setting for a soap opera continued to take root in the 1980s. Casualty, set in an A&E department, was first broadcast in 1986 and has since become the longest running medical drama in the world. At a
City Hospital (UK TV series) London's flagship NHS Health Trust - Guy's Hospital and St Thomas' Hospital 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 a cover of part of Bruce Hornsby's song "The Way It Is". 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