Cancer operations at Nottingham University Hospitals are under threat of being cancelled as the Trust has run out of beds. As people lie on trollies waiting to be admitted into A&E, hundreds of mostly-elderly patients are stuck in hospital. They are well enough to leave, but must wait either for a place in a residential home or for the appropriate care packages to be set up to support them in their own homes. 93-year-old Ray has dementia and will need a package of care to help him once he is back at home. After ten weeks, social services organise a care package but doubts arise about his ability to cope at home on his own. 89-year-old Jean has been waiting for the package of care that will allow her to go home. Her flat will need to be decluttered before it is deemed safe enough, but Jean's keys are missing, so she is offered a temporary place in a residential home until they are found. However her social worker is concerned that a residential home is not right for her.

On most days in winter, the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at Queen's Medical Centre is full. Intensive care is often the last resort for very sick children, a place that can keep them alive while doctors work on making them better. It's also where children undergoing the most serious surgery come to recuperate. It's the job of lead consultant paediatrician Patrick Davies to balance the ever increasing demands that are made on the over-flowing unit every day. Lack of children's intensive care beds is a nationwide problem. Four-year-old Esme is rushed to Queens Medical Centre from Hull, 90 miles away, when her closest intensive care units in Leeds and Sheffield are both completely full. She is suffering from septic shock, an extreme form of sepsis, a life threatening condition that occurs when the body reacts to an infection by damaging its own organs. Patrick and the team must stabilise her so that her life is out of danger.

The advice from the NHS to cancel all non-urgent surgery is taking a heavy toll at Nottingham University Hospitals. Cameras follow Val, a 55-year-old mouth cancer patient, and Dilip Srinivasan, the surgeon fighting to see her operation goes ahead despite the new NHS ruling. Also featured is orthopaedic consultant surgeon Tony Westbrook, who has had most of his routine surgical list cancelled.

Head and neck surgeon David Grant returns from annual leave to find his surgical list has snowballed. He's one of only two consultant surgeons at Nottingham University Hospitals' busy cancer head and neck service.

A huge influx of patients into the emergency department at Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham, results in dozens of people lying on trollies waiting to be admitted. With A&E departments across the country bursting at the seams, NHS bosses make an unprecedented move - they advise every hospital in England to cancel all operations that are not clinically urgent or for cancer. The hope is that this will release beds for the patients queuing to get into A&E.