A health and safety plan would have to be written, shooting locations outlined, safety of presenters and film crew outlined and paramount. The surveyors promised to pass on the address of the building’s owners, who were starting clearance work in preparation to turn the central parts of the hospital into a hotel. But they would be suspicious of our motives, worried of being badly or erroneously represented.

To talk to the right people, to get permission for just us to film a shaky pilot film, was becoming an exercise in cunning itself; like the red fences around the hospital itself, would we be able to navigate all the red tape?