Children's Hospital: The Chaplains

The chaplains at Birmingham Children's Hospital offer support to 80,000 young patients every year. The first programme in this series following the emotional and spiritual rollercoaster of their work tells the story of a young baby in desperate need of a liver transplant.

At Birmingham Children's Hospital, the chaplains support a father stepping in to save his baby daughter's life by donating a part of his own liver. And they offer spiritual strength to the family of a seven-year-old boy battling a cancerous tumour for the third time.

When the parents of a three-year-old boy are told that his cancer has returned, it's the job of the Birmingham Children's Hospital chaplains to support the family. This week they're also helping a 12-year-old girl struggling to recover from a second liver transplant.

On the teenage cancer ward a 15-year-old boy is treated for leukaemia. On the renal ward, a 15-year-old girl faces surgery to remove her transplanted kidney which has stopped working, and it is the only one she has. Meanwhile, the chaplains prepare for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Staff and patients' families fast during daylight hours in the height of summer.

At Birmingham Children's Hospital, the chaplains support a young rugby player who is undergoing brain surgery. His promising career on the pitch is now over. A new mum faces six months in hospital after her boy is born with soft bones. And a baby who needs a life-saving heart transplant is baptised in the hospital chapel.

In the final episode of the series, the chaplains at Birmingham Children's Hospital are called to the parents of a newborn baby with suspected meningitis. They also support the family of Stanley, who after spending the first year of his life in hospital, must have major heart surgery to get home at last. And the table is turned on one of the chaplains whose six-year-old daughter has to come into hospital.