Channel 5 Orders Operation: Live Stripped Event Series

The Garden Productions, part of ITV Studios, is producing the 3×2-hour stripped event series Operation: Live, which will air across a week on Channel 5 later this year.

The production promises an up-close, stripped-back, live and uncut look at surgery, following in its entirety a life-changing operation. Using the latest technology and with access to St Bartholomew’s and The Royal London Hospitals of Barts Health NHS Trust, each night the program will broadcast live from inside the operating theater.

Guy Davies, commissioning editor and VP of factual, said: “With innovative new production techniques and fantastic co-operation from one of the country’s biggest NHS Trusts, Operation: Live will give more detail and insight into surgery as it happens than we have seen before. The process will be driven by the surgeon largely unmediated, so it will be a really expert view as the minutes tick by.”

Ninder Billing, executive producer at The Garden, commented: “We’re delighted to be working with Channel 5 on this ambitious series that will give an insight into the incredible skill and teamwork that these procedures demand, and that’s being employed every day by surgeons and their teams across the NHS. The two-hour timeframe allows an audience to see these procedures in a unique way, demystifying for the first time every step of what unfolds once we ‘go under’ and entrust our lives into the care of a surgical team.”