Great Ormond Street

Pushing the Boundaries focuses on the work of the largest children's cardiac unit in the UK. Two of its surgeons, Martin Elliott and Victor Tsang, perform extremely advanced surgery that isn't carried out anywhere else in the country, and the team's success rate for heart transplant is well above the international average. Consultant cardiologist Phil Rees is the team's longest serving doctor, and admits that he still finds it difficult not to become too emotionally involved in individual cases The film documents the stories of four children as the team attempt to save their lives: the parents of 8-month-old Aicha, given only a few months to live, refuse to accept the team's decision that there's nothing else to be done, forcing the doctors to reconsider their decision; 8-month-old Natalie's parents are offered surgery that might save their daughter's life, but the procedure is very complex and has never been tried before; 9-year-old Bryan has already had several life-saving heart operations but now a high-risk heart transplant is all that's left to him; and Blessing's parents must decide whether to agree to a perilous operation on their daughter when she is only two days old.

Caught in the Machine looks at the work of Great Ormond Street Hospital's Intensive Care Unit. It is the largest such unit in the UK and takes patients from all over the country. It is often the last resort for those who can't be helped anywhere else and, although most patients leave the ward in three days, some must stay longer. The film follows intensive care consultants Christine Pierce and Andy Petros as they make crucial decisions about their most difficult cases: seven-year-old Ellis has been in a coma for five weeks with an unknown illness, and doctors must keep him alive if they are to have any chance of solving the mystery of his condition; eight-month-old Uzoma has been in hospital since she was born and the team must assess if she will ever be well enough to go home; the parents of eight-month-old Deanne have been told the injuries she suffered as a result of her prematurity are so severe that she is unlikely to survive for long, but her mother doesn't believe this and has asked the hospital to review her case; finally there is a one-day-old baby born without a windpipe and the team must decide whether it is right to try experimental surgery even though it has little chance of success.

The series concludes with An Imperfect Cure, following the staff of Great Ormond Street Hospital's renal department as they treat children for a condition which has no complete cure. Long-term treatment over decades requires an enormous level of cooperation and consent between the medical team, the patients and their parents. But what happens when parents and older children are unwilling to accept the doctors' advice? Doctors Lesley Rees, Rukshana Shroff and Sarah Ledermann must make complex decisions in a never-ending cycle of treatment: 4-month-old Alisha was born with kidney failure. Staff must try to keep her alive until she grows big enough to receive a kidney transplant, but as she suffers repeated infections which threaten her life, staff and her parents must consider whether it is right to carry on. 14-year-old Imaan's kidneys are slowly poisoning her and doctors want to remove them. She is terrified of surgery and refuses to have the operation. Can staff persuade her to go through with it? Bethany was born with mental and physical disabilities, including poorly functioning kidneys. Her father Paul is keen to donate his kidney to his daughter, but staff must decide whether she is likely to survive a transplant - and whether it would be in her best interest.