Radio Times: Review by:; Alison Graham

Tears drip down a mother’s face as she and her husband confront the scale of the treatment her small daughter needs if she is to have any chance of surviving aggressive cancer. “We don’t have any other choice. What if she’s one of the lucky ones?” If they go ahead, the little girl will be bombarded with very high doses of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. As a Great Ormond Street doctor ponders later: “It might even be the treatment that kills the child.”

This harrowing, affecting series examines the seemingly impossible decisions that have to be taken by medical experts and parents in the best interests of very, very sick children. Sometimes those interests are served by stopping treatment altogether, which can result in tensions between staff and desperate mums and dads. But, as in the first series (which went out in 2010), it’s the remarkably forbearing and cheerful children, each going through so much, who will pierce your heart.

About this programme

1/6. New series. Documentary following doctors at the children's hospital as they struggle with some of the hardest ethical dilemmas in medicine, beginning with the treatment of youngsters with cancer. Filmed over the course of a year, the programme records crucial choices facing doctors about the best ways to treat their patients and deal with their immediate families.