Bender UK has played a key role in ensuring the authenticity of the operating theatre scenes in the new Sky 1 drama, ‘Critical’, by providing operating theatre equipment used in the hi-tech sets built for the series.
Each programme in the 13-part medical drama focuses on the team’s real-time efforts to save patients during the critical first 60 minutes after they arrive at the hospital; these minutes flash by on the digital clock within the Bender touchscreen control panel controlling the theatre equipment. The company also supplied the advanced XLED surgical lighting used in the operating theatre set through its exclusive UK partnership with Steris.
‘Critical’ is set in a ‘state-of-the-art’ Major Trauma Centre, and each episode features a new and distinctive case. Malcolm Thornton, production designer for ‘Critical’ at Hat Trick Productions, explained: “The concept of the ‘Critical’ Trauma Unit was a cutting edge, hi-tech, medical unit equipped with state-of-theart equipment. The set was to be lit entirely with LED lights, and this applied to the operating theatre. We chose Steris XLED theatre lamps from Bender because of their light quality, and their stunning interwoven crescent-shaped lamp arrangement. The lamps’ look was perfect for our setting, and their technical performance gave us the light quality we needed for the different medical situations to be depicted.”
The use of the Bender touchscreen control panel also suited the hi-tech feel that the production team sought, while displaying the digital clock to track the ‘race-against-time’ action.
Malcolm Thornton added: “The multifunctionality of the screen gave us the options of displaying graphics, switching to a live feed from our overhead camera, and playing-in pre-recorded digital sequences.”
The Steris XLED modular lighting system offers a choice of 1, 2, 3, or 4 spots ‘to meet every surgical need’. Each spot array of 20 LEDs is configured to optimise performance, producing patterns that Bender says are ‘perfectly arranged to remove shadows and ensure excellent colour rendering’. As the LED lamps do not emit infrared rays, virtually no heat is radiated. The risk of drying out exposed tissue is thus minimised, and the conditions for both the patient and the surgical team – and the actors in ‘Critical’ – are cooler and more comfortable.
The ‘wipe-clean’ membrane design on the hygienic touchscreen operating theatre control panels ‘delivers maximum sterility’, while an antimicrobial silver nitrate coating enables staff to exercise safe control of the theatre environment ‘via an ergonomic single point of reference’, even when wearing surgical gloves.
