Children's Hospital (British TV series)

Children's Hospital is a British television fly-on-the-wall documentary series based at the Sheffield Children's Hospital, Birmingham Children's Hospital, and Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool.^[4] It was broadcast on BBC One between 19 October 1993 and 26 February 2003.

Children's Hospital
Genre	Docu-soap[1]
Theme music composer	Debbie Wiseman
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language	English
No. of series	12
No. of episodes	114
Production
Executive producer	Jeremy Mills[2]
Producers	Richard Bradley[3] Tracy Cook
Running time	30 minutes
Original release
Network	BBC One
Release	19 October 1993 (1993-10-19)[3] – 26 February 2003 (2003-02-26)

Production

According to scholar Annette Hill, the series had "all the hallmarks of a docu-soap", saying its "personal, melodramatic stories appeal to viewers, with more than 8 million tuning into the first series, despite widespread criticism from the press."^[5] Peter Lee-Wright observes that the series marked a transition in fly-on-the-wall documentaries by shifting the emphasis from the practical considerations onto the "human dramas being played out ... [capturing] the pain of the children ... and their parents' rollercoaster rides."^[6]

Music

The theme music was composed by Debbie Wiseman. The music was released as a CD single in 1997, containing full orchestral and piano versions of the theme, alongside the shorter versions used for the opening and closing sequences.^[7] The orchestral version was also released on the compilation album World of Sound.^[8] A new solo piano performance, titled "Ray of Sunshine", of the theme was included on the 2011 album Wiseman: Piano Stories.^[9]

Transmissions

Series

Series	Start date	End date	Episodes
1	19 October 1993	21 December 1993	10
2	20 October 1994	22 December 1994	10
3	7 January 1997	3 June 1997	20
4	3 September 1997	10 October 1997	6
5	21 April 1998	17 June 1998	12
6	7 September 1998	9 November 1998	10
7	27 April 1999	8 July 1999	10
8	18 January 2000	29 February 2000	6
9	27 June 2000	1 August 2000	6
10	13 June 2001	15 August 2001	8
11	26 June 2002	7 August 2002	6
12	22 January 2003	26 February 2003	6

Specials

Entitle	Air Date
Christmas Special	22 December 1997
Philadelphia	8 December 1999
Russia with Jeremy Spake	10 December 1999
Christmas Special	20 December 1999

Further reading

• Bradley, Richard; Cook, Tracy; Phillips, Mark (1993). Children's Hospital: The Book of the BBC-TV Series. BBC Worldwide. ISBN 0-563-36972-8.
• Hill, Annette (May 2000). "Fearful and Safe: Audience Response to British Reality Programming". Television & New Media. 1 (2): 193–213. doi:10.1177/152747640000100205. S2CID 144757382.