Casualty welcomes ‘front line medical workers’ to writing team

Working with BBC Writersroom, Casualty has announced the addition of three front line medical workers to its writing team.

As part of its 35th-anniversary celebrations, Casualty, the world’s longest-running medical drama, launched the first opportunity of its kind for 20 years and opened its doors to find new talented writers with direct medical experience to join its shadow script team. Two sets of writers have now been brought on board.

Joining the team will be Samantha Bacchus, a frontline medical worker for over 15 years who has worked within maternity, A+E, and on the respiratory wards as both an Auxiliary Nurse and a Staff Nurse, before moving to the prison service as an Offending Behaviour Programme Facilitator. She is now a full time novelist.

Also joining are writing duo Laura Griffiths and Chris Griffiths. Laura has worked for the NHS for over 33 years, and is currently a District Nurse. Chris began his career as a paramedic before retraining as an Anaesthetic Practitioner. Most recently, he has worked within the Resuscitation Team, attending traumas and training doctors and nurses in CPR.

Sarah Beeson, BBC Studios, Script Producer at Casualty:

“We were hugely impressed by the standard of all the applications, but Samantha, Chris and Laura really stood out to us with their authentic creative ambition and clear passion for Casualty. We are extremely excited to now be working with them on their shadow scripts, and look forward to developing them as future Casualty writers while learning from their fascinating true life experiences.”

The new writers will work with the Casualty team on shadow scripts and they will also help to develop future storylines.