Confessions of a Nurse

Latoya dreams of life as a supermodel rather than the £14,000-a-year basic pay she receives as a Healthcare Assistant. Straight-talking and glamorous Debbie worked as a healthcare assistant for 10 years before she qualified as a staff nurse. Working in the relative ease and gentle pace of a ward specialising in hip and knee replacements, Debbie gets a shock when she's transferred to the orthopaedic trauma ward. Coping with heavily dependent patients and a man who repeatedly hurls his own faeces at the nurses, her patience, nursing skills and caring instincts are severely tested. Talented, wisecracking nurse Sarah has just made a major career move. Having worked as a sister in A&E for seven years, she's on trial to be a Clinical Nurse Practitioner, responsible for running the whole hospital at night. It's a big step up into management and Sarah needs to decide whether she's prepared to spend less time looking after patients and more time running the place

Harriet is a first-year RAF student nurse on her first 10-week training placement, at Birmingham City Hospital. As she suffers abuse from dementia patients and grapples with the embarrassing bodily functions that arise from their old age, she draws on her military background to stay strong. A quarter of all student nurses dropping out before completing their training; will Harriet stay the distance? Gemma is a newly qualified nurse in her first six months on the job. At just 21 she has to face sights most of us will never see, on a daily basis - dying patients, dead bodies - yet she still breezes into work declaring her love for the job. The kind of nurse you'd dream of finding by your bedside, Gemma's desperate to prove that nurses definitely do care. But as she goes the extra mile to be there for patients, it isn't long before she discovers it's possible to care too much. With only a year on the job, Angela (22) refuses to let her limited experience hold her back. A spirited nurse with attitude and confidence in equal measure, she believes every nurse has their own coping mechanism, and hers is to let things go over her head. As she strives to strike a balance between being professional at work and being young and fun out of work, she finds herself increasingly drawn to the adrenaline kicks that accompany emergency nursing

Ward Manger Eileen runs a busy General Medical Ward in Birmingham City Hospital while caring for very poorly patients. Like many others across Britain, Eileen's ward has its fair share of wandering elderly patients with dementia and mental health issues. Among Eileen's team of nurses is Tanya, an energetic and likeable newly qualified staff nurse. Popular with patients and gifted with the skills to deal with the most challenging situations, Tanya is one of Eileen's best nurses. But her attendance is terrible. Outside of work, Tanya is struggling with her chaotic lifestyle, housing problems and the challenges of being a single mum. As Tanya tries to get her life back on track, Eileen has to decide whether she can keep her on

The final episode in the series follows staff nurse Louise and Ward Manager Paul as they try to care for some tricky patients - and parents - on a busy children's ward. While hospital is supposed to sort out our medical problems, many of Paul and Louise's patients have issues that medicine alone can't fix. From teenagers self-harming due to problems at school or home, to serious diet-related illness because of not being fed the right foods, Paul and Louise can find themselves acting as social workers, baby-sitters and, at times, surrogate parents, as well as nurses. The impact that issues at home can have on kids' mental health is something that mother-of-three Louise is all too aware of, having gone through a difficult separation from her husband. While Louise balances the demands of being a single mum and working long shifts, the troubled teenagers on the ward make her constantly question how well she's doing as a mum. Meanwhile, for Paul, having to deal with the consequences of bad parenting can be painfully frustrating; after years of unsuccessful IVF, he is unable to have children of his own