Don’t knock Ross Kemp’s coronavirus documentary – doctors like me are grateful he’s telling the truth

Investigative journalism has an essential role to play in exposing the hard facts of the NHS frontline

Ross Kemp’s style of investigative journalism is probably better suited to military and gang warfare than to coronavirus wards in Milton Keynes. But has he rocked the cynics?

At first glance, you’d be right to be sceptical about his documentary about a “warzone in a field hospital”. More sensationalist baloney competing for primetime viewers, you might think. When I took part a documentary – the first of its kind – exploring life on mental health wards, I too was sceptical. However, I quickly realised there was a role for documentaries in public health education – so I took a stance on Kemp’s, and I hope I’m not wrong.

The first public response to the announcement of the documentary was brutal. What gives Ross Kemp the right to invade hospital wards and intensive care departments with a flagrant disregard for privacy? And at a time when members of the public are unable to see their hospitalised family members? So strong was public sentiment, it spurred an online petition that now has close to 4,000 signatories. “People are dying from this deadly virus,” reads the petition’s introduction, “yet ITV and Kemp are allowed to gown up in full PPE and stroll around A&E getting in the way of the already overwhelmed NHS staff…as people are banned from visiting their sick and dying relatives”.

Yet since the first episode aired, the tide of public sentiment appears to have shifted. On the show, Kemp asks questions that have been shouted at television screens by millions, notably? His questions weren’t rhetorical – they were designed to shine a light on how the NHS is coping with coronavirus.

The documentary was sensitive and compassionate, all the while exposing the hard facts of the NHS frontline: rising demand for intensive care unit beds; high levels of stress; long hours spent working hours behind personal protective equipment; staffing levels in state of flux. He portrayed an NHS under immense strain, but nevertheless professional and organised, and with a workforce that goes above and beyond.

The documentary makes one thing clear: if we go out only when we need to, we might avoid putting hospitals in a position of having to choose which patient to put on a ventilator.

I very much hope that Kemp has won over his doubters, because high-quality investigative journalism can expedite our journey towards the truth.

Tony Rao is a consultant old-age psychiatrist and visiting lecturer at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust/Institute of Psychiatry in London. He is also associate registrar for public engagement at The Royal College of Psychiatrists. He currently chairs a working group on patient and carer resources for Covid-19 and mental health.