Breathtaking on ITV1 is a hard-hitting dramatisation of how NHS medics coped in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic – however is Joanne Froggatt‘s character Dr Abbey Henderson a real particular person?

The collection joins acute drugs guide Dr Abbey Henderson and her workforce weeks earlier than the UK’s first nationwide lockdown. Coronary heart-wrenching scenes present their wrestle with the primary wave of Covid-19 sufferers.

Operating out of PPE, employees, and beds, Abbey is compelled to make troublesome healthcare choices as her colleagues start to be contaminated with Covid-19.

When the Tory authorities lastly imposed a lockdown, the pandemic stretches Abbey and the workforce to their limits. Viewers will watch in horror as Abbey and the employees confront authorities coverage in relation to care dwelling discharges and insufficient PPE.

So is Abbey Henderson in Breathtaking a real particular person? And who is Rachel Clarke? Right here’s the whole lot it’s good to know…

Is Abbey Henderson real in Breathtaking?

Breathtaking concentrates on the primary hand experiences of Acute Normal Medication Physician Abbey Henderson, performed by Downton Abbey star Joanne Froggatt.

Dr Abbey Henderson is NOT a real particular person. Nonetheless, her experiences are primarily based in truth.

At first of Breathtaking on ITV, we’re instructed: “This story is primarily based on real experiences of Nationwide Well being Service employees and sufferers in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The hospital and characters have been created for dramatic functions.”

So whereas the characters are fictional, the tales are sadly all-too true. Author Rachel Clarke is eager to level out that the character of Dr Abbey Henderson is not her.

Joanne Froggatt instructed ED!: “Abbey is primarily based on each Rachel’s experiences in the course of the pandemic, but additionally these of many different medical doctors and nurses. She is a fictional character with many various tales integrated into one particular person. However each state of affairs in the script is primarily based on actuality. Each affected person’s story is primarily based on one thing that occurred someplace in the UK. That was an extremely grounding expertise.”

Who is Rachel Clarke?

Breathtaking is primarily based on the e-book of the identical identify by Rachel Clarke, launched in January 2021. The three half collection has been tailored for tv by Rachel, and former medical doctors Jed Mercurio, and Prasanna Puwanarajah.

The drama stars Joanne Froggatt in the function of a frontline hospital guide – and all accounts are primarily based on doctor-writer Rachel Clarke’s unflinching private memoir of the best public well being disaster in residing reminiscence.

Dr Rachel Clarke, who wrote and govt produced the collection, got here from a medical household (her father was a GP) and located the profession path fascinating.

She “cherished being at medical college to bits” and later “needed the affected person to really feel as if they have been the one factor that mattered to me”. Rachel was working in a hospice as a palliative care physician when Covid-19 arrived.

She says: “Because the pandemic unfolded, I knew from very early on when these terrible haunting photos began to look from China after which from Northern Italy that this virus was going to have a catastrophic impact in the UK.”

Rachel requested if she might transfer out of the hospice sector right into a hospital setting the place “ward after ward after ward was crammed with sufferers dying from Covid”. She provides: “The e-book Breathtaking is about my very own private experiences and people of others I interviewed in my hospital belief.”

Have been Jed Mercurio and Prasanna Puwanarajah medical doctors?

In addition to Rachel Clarke, each Line of Obligation creator Jed Mecurio and Payback actor Prasanna Puwanarajah have been medics earlier than shifting into TV.

In reality, co-writers Prasanna Puwanarajah and Rachel Clarke have recognized one another for almost 20 years. When she was a medical pupil in Oxford, he was a really junior physician in his first 12 months of coaching as a physician.

Rachel and Prasanna met in the identical little medical agency and he taught her learn how to give folks injections. She describes him as “this extremely type, enthusiastic and really dedicated younger physician who I regarded as much as then”.

She provides: “Paradoxically sufficient he left drugs quickly afterwards however our paths crossed once more with each of us having moved into extra inventive areas of labor in addition to performing drugs in my case.”

In the meantime, Lancashire-born Jed Mercurio practiced as a hospital physician for 3 years. He later ventured into writing and penned the BBC medical drama Cardiac Arrest beneath the pseudonym John MacUre.

Is Abbey Henderson real in Breathtaking? What number of healthcare employees died in the course of the Covid pandemic?

The Workplace for Nationwide Statistics recorded 414 healthcare employees died of Covid-19 from March to December 2020.

In 2021, an estimated 60,000 NHS employees reported signs of Publish-Traumatic Stress because of their work in the Covid-19 pandemic.

It is not but recognized what number of medical doctors died by suicide throughout these years.

Learn extra: Breathtaking star Joanne Froggatt discovered love once more after painful divorce