Channel 4 are back on the front line with West Midlands Ambulance Service

The series that follows a typical 12-hour shift with the paramedics of West Midlands Ambulance Service returns for a new run.

Filmed as hospital waiting times rocket and the pressures on the service increase dramatically, this series, the tenth, lays bare what life is really like on the front line at the Stoke, Stafford and Willenhall ambulance hubs.

This first episode explores how the paramedics never know when they’re going to be called upon to save lives. On their way back to base, they’re flagged down by a police van to help a man who’s overdosed on drugs, has collapsed and is unresponsive. They’re also called out to a woman with gynaecological problems, who’s losing a lot of blood and needs to go to hospital, and a man who has a condition where his throat swells up and closes without warning.

Another man falls and cuts his head so badly that the paramedics can see his skull. And an elderly man is confused and may have had a mini stroke.

999: On the Front Line, Channel 4, 8 pm