The cost of treating NHS patients will be examined in a new Channel 4 interactive documentary that the broadcaster says gives viewers the chance to "decide for themselves who should receive the treatment".

With the working title of NHS: The Cost of Living, the series has been commissioned as campaigners are currently urging pharmaceutical giant Roche to reduce the price of a pioneering breast cancer treatment after it was rejected for widespread use by the NHS on cost grounds.

According to Channel 4 NHS: The Cost of Living will have, "a live presence through the broadcast of the documentaries [and] this innovative format will challenge viewers to decide for themselves who should receive the treatment and how the NHS should spend its rapidly depleting funds".

Exact details are still being worked out of how the programme will work – however, it will not be a kind of Patient Idol or X-ray Factor style-show as viewers will not actually have the final say on who receives the treatment, only register their opinions on either a website or Twitter feed.

The four-part series will be followed by a live debate, which is likely to provoke opinion as with the NHS spending on average more than £2bn a week, its costs are rising faster than its budget.

Channel 4 head of documentaries Nick Mirsky said: "The series will reveal the costs of each patient to the NHS and explore the complex ethical and financial dilemmas faced by clinicians as these become an increasingly prevalent factor in the care they are able to offer patients.

"NHS: The Cost of Living will ask viewers – would you make decisions differently about where and how the NHS spends its money if you knew the full emotional, social and medical context of each treatment? We can't afford to provide all the medical treatment that we would like to – in the debate programme we will ask our viewers where and how we draw the line – who should receive it and who should be denied."

It will be made by new independent production company Voltage TV, series produced by Jon Alwen and executive produced by Sanjay Singhal.

Singhal said: "It's an ambitious programme combining strong character-led storytelling, difficult access, solid journalism and innovation in form – with tricky moral dilemmas running through its core. We couldn't hope for more from our first series."

The series will air later this year.

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