Hospital drama’s producer says BBC wanted to help ‘courageous and selfless real-life medics’

The BBC has donated fully working ventilators from the set of medical drama Holby City to London’s new NHS Nightingale field hospital.

The corporation shared the news in a tweet, showing workers loading equipment into a van.

BBC Studios (@bbcstudios) Fully operational ventilators from the Holby City set arrived at the new Nightingale Hospital yesterday. @BBCCasualty & @BBCHolbyCity Exec Producer Simon Harper said: "We are only too happy to help out and do what we can for the courageous and selfless real life medics." pic.twitter.com/oUFaRPVhyn

Holby City’s executive producer, Simon Harper, said they wanted to help “the courageous and selfless real-life medics.”

It was not immediately clear how many ventilators had been donated, or why working medical equipment was used on set.

The new NHS Nightingale hospital at the ExCeL exhibition centre was created in just nine days to help cope with the coronavirus pandemic.

It has the potential to offer 4,000 beds at the east London site.

The BBC’s gesture is the latest in a national outpouring of gratitude to NHS staff risking their lives to fight the outbreak.

On Thursday, the nation once again united for a country-wide round of applause for workers on the front line.

It came as the UK recorded its highest daily death toll since the outbreak began.

The health secretary, Matt Hancock, told the daily No 10 news conference that as of Thursday there had been 8,958 hospital deaths from the disease, an increase of 980 on the previous day.