Charity film shows that NHS staff are not alone

In this powerful and affecting new film we witness an NHS nurse breaking down following a difficult night shift, hearing her describe the trauma of what she sees in her day-to-day role. 

At the end of the film you realise the voice over is actually her in a therapy session, the nurses' final words - ‘It’s good to talk, thank you for listening’ – highlighting that help is available for NH staff who need it.

Founded last March by a doctor’s wife, Duty To Care aims to provide immediate, free support to NHS workers struggling due to high pressures under which they work. Via online sessions with psychotherapists, CBT therapists, yoga, mindfulness, meditation, nutrition experts and personal trainers, the charity's ambition is to help eliminate any barriers to seeking support during a time of need and drive donations to the charity. 

The film was created by a small team of volunteers and directed by AMV BBDO's George Hackforth-Jones [who directed the recent, very funny short film Selling Out, also starring actor Lucy Scott-Smith, who plays the nurse in this spot, and who is Hackforth-Jones' wife].  Hackforth-Jones worked with real NHS staff and a Duty To Care therapist to create an authentic representation of a nurse's experience over the last year. While the film features Scott-Smith, it is based on real NHS workers experience and the voice over is made up entirely of anonymous verbatims taken from actual therapy sessions.

"One of my best friends, Harriet, founded the charity last year," explains Hackforth-Jones. "Her husband's a doctor and has struggled with the mental side of the job before the pandemic so they knew there'd be a big need for this support when Covid hit. After speaking to him, and hearing how it's been for people on the frontline, we felt like supporting with awareness was the least we could do.    

One of the biggest challenges in making the spot, says Hackforth-Jones, was making sure that whatever they did felt true to the experiences of these NHS workers and not creatively over-indulgent. "I spoke to a couple of nurses and doctors about their experience of the last year and then Lucy and I spent a fair bit of time talking to one of the therapists who's been working with the charity and that was really eye opening," he says. "Everything you see in the film is based on those real experiences and stories. All the words in the VO are real verbatims from NHS staff."

As for his move into the director's chair in recent months, Hackforth-Jones says; "I fear I'm descending into the "'creative with aspirations of directing' cliche but, truthfully, this all happened very fast, with very little... well, with no money... and I'm a bit of a control freak. Or maybe I'm just very good at making my wife cry."