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 high-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, and those minutes will flash by on the digital clock within the Bender touch-screen control panel which controls operating theatre equipment. Bender UK also supplied the advanced XLED surgical lighting used in the operating theatre set through its exclusive UK partnership with Steris.
Malcolm Thornton, production designer for ‘Critical’ at Hat Trick Productions, explained: “The concept of the ‘Critical‘ Trauma Unit was a cutting edge, high tech, medical unit that was equipped with stateof-the-art 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 look of the lamps 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 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 perfectly arranged to remove shadows and ensure excellent colour rendering. Importantly LED lamps do not emit infrared rays, so virtually no heat is radiated. As a result, the risk of drying out exposed tissue is minimised and the conditions for the patient and surgical team are cooler and more comfortable.
Bender leads UK contemporary membrane technology and the wipe clean membrane design on its hygienic touchscreen operating theatre control panels delivers maximum sterility. Innovative features include an anti-microbial silver nitrate coating which enables staff to exercise safe control of the theatre environment through an ergonomic single point of reference, even when wearing surgical gloves.
Image Credit: John Rogers for HatTrick/BSkyB
