The Hospital

Filmed in the accident and emergency wards of two Midlands hospitals, this episode highlights the alcohol-related casualties and fatalities that are pushing NHS staff to the limits of their endurance on a weekly basis. Thanks to the principle of free healthcare at the point of delivery, none of the young patients know how much their care costs the NHS - but the real price of a night out can be high, and the seriously ill are often forced to compete with the casualties of a binge-drinking epidemic. For the doctors and nurses on the frontline, left to pick up the pieces of a generation that some are calling a health time-bomb, there are no easy answers.

This episode explores the cost of teenage mothers to an already stretched health service. With 46,000 pregnant teens registered in the UK last year - the highest number in Europe - and many young people failing to take responsibility for their own health, can the NHS afford to maintain its founding principle of free healthcare at the point of delivery? Part of a three-part series examining the relationship between teenagers and the NHS, this programme visits City Hospital in Birmingham where 10 new pregnant teenage girls register at the maternity unit each week. Is the NHS being asked to pick up the pieces of an increasingly self-destructive society?

The third episode in the series looks at the cost of Britain's increasingly obese teens. At Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham, younger and younger patients are being referred for help in tackling their weight and, increasingly, they are asking for a gastric band. While doctors and dieticians see the £6000 operation as a last resort, some patients seek them as an 'easy' solution to their weight problem. But NHS weight management clinics can only help those who help themselves, and health professionals are hampered by young patients who don't tell them the truth about what they are eating.