| Alt Name: | Calling Nurse Roberts |
| Genre: | Soap opera |
| Creator: | Tessa Diamond[1] |
| Endtheme: | "Silks and Satins" |
| Composer: | Peter Yorke |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
| Num Episodes: | 1,016 |
| Runtime: | 30 minutes |
| Company: | ATV |
| Channel: | ITV |
Emergency Ward 10 is a British medical soap opera series shown on ITV between 1957 and 1967. It is considered to be one of British television's first major soap operas.
The series was made by the ITV contractor ATV and set in a fictional hospital called Oxbridge General. Growing out of what was originally intended to be no more than a six-week serial (entitled Calling Nurse Roberts), the series became ITV's first twice-weekly evening soap opera. Emergency Ward 10 was the first hospital-based television drama to establish a successful format combining medical matters with storylines centring on the personal lives of the doctors and nurses.
Emergency Ward 10 attracted attention for its portrayal of an interracial relationship between surgeon Louise Mahler (played by Joan Hooley) and Doctor Giles Farmer (played by John White),[2] showing the second kiss on television between black and white actors in July 1964,[3] the first such kiss being in a Granada TV play You in Your Small Corner in 1962.[4] [5] [6] However, the producers wrote the Mahler character out shortly afterwards by sending her to Africa, where she succumbed to snake bite.
When ratings began to slide it was decided to convert the programme from a soap to a one-hour drama for Saturday nights, produced by Jo Douglas. It didn't work.Emergency Ward 10 ended in 1967 after the show had been on air for ten years. ATV executive Lew Grade later admitted that cancelling the series was one of the biggest mistakes he ever made in his career.[7]
The formula was subsequently revived with the (originally) afternoon series General Hospital (no connection with the American daytime soap General Hospital) which was broadcast between 1972 and 1979.
Australia's Charles "Bud" Tingwell starred in the series as surgeon Alan "Digger" Dawson, enjoying a heart-throb status because of his role.
The closing theme tune was "Silks and Satins" by Peter Yorke.
In March 2008, Network released a DVD set containing the 24 earliest surviving episodes which date from 1959 and 1960. A second 24-episode volume was released in July 2008, while a third 24-episode set was released in 2010. A 1966 episode was included on Network's Soap Box Volume One DVD as was the sole-surviving episode of spin-off Call Oxbridge 2000.