Holby City (series 1) "Holby City" was created by Tony McHale and Mal Young as a spin–off from the long–running BBC medical drama "Casualty". Young wanted to explore what happened to patients treated in "Casualty" once they were taken away to the hospital's surgical wards. While "Casualty" scope is limited to "accident of the week" storylines about patients entering hospital, "Holby City" allowed the possibility of storylines about long–term care, rather than immediate life and death decisions. Although both shows are set in the same hospital, the "Casualty" set in Bristol was not large enough to encompass the surgical ward and operating theatre required
General Hospital (UK TV series) productions to fill in the extended schedules. Among the first of these shows, which were aimed at giving advertisers access to housewives, were the long-running rural soap "Emmerdale Farm" (YTV) and the twice-weekly medical drama "General Hospital". Set in a fictional Midlands town, the series followed the romantic and professional lives of its doctors and nurses. While the location and the characters names had been changed, in most other respects "General Hospital" was almost identical to its predecessor, "Emergency – Ward 10", a deliberate attempt to recreate its success. In 1975, after 270 twice-weekly episodes, "General Hospital" was given a