Breathtaking

This series follows NHS medics during the Covid-19 pandemic. Weeks before the UK’s first national lockdown, acute medicine consultant Dr Abbey Henderson and her team struggle with the first wave of Covid-19 patients. Running out of PPE, staff, and beds, Abbey is forced to make difficult healthcare decisions as her colleagues begin to be infected with Covid-19. When lockdown is finally imposed, the pandemic stretches Abbey and the team to their limits as they confront government policy in relation to care home discharges and inadequate PPE. 

They try their best to save patients but are forced to endure the trauma of loss and tragedy caused by Covid-19. As winter arrives, a new wave hits the hospital, this time with Covid-19 deniers surfacing too, which causes the team to reach their breaking point. Scarred and enraged, Abbey cannot maintain her silence any longer and decides to risk everything by speaking out.  

The drama stars Joanne Froggatt in the role of a frontline hospital consultant. Breathtaking is based on doctor-writer Rachel Clarke’s unflinching personal memoir of the greatest public health crisis in living memory, adapted for television by Rachel Clarke and former junior hospital doctors Jed Mercurio and Prasanna Puwanarajah. The drama has been directed by Craig Viveiros (Angela Black, The Watch, The War of the Worlds) and produced by Brian J. Falconer (Derry Girls, Ordinary Love and The Dig).

Breathtaking airs on Monday 19th, Tuesday 20th, Wednesday 21st February on ITV1 and ITVX as well as STV and STV player.