Channel Five
In the first episode of the series, Brighton’s summer season kicks off with its annual ‘Paddle round the Pier’ festival – opened by local superstar Fat Boy Slim. Whilst the partygoers compete to float the craziest rafts around Brighton pier, lifeguard Joe watches over proceedings to make sure no one ends up in danger.
Meanwhile, coastguards Des and Ray have another headache on their hands. A rookie paddleboarder taking part in a 20-mile race is hours behind the rest of the field and the weather is about to turn. Can they locate the missing man before things get nasty?
Elsewhere, as day becomes night, police officers Lou and Rick have their work cut out making sure the city’s drunken visitors behave. The morning after, their colleagues Gill and Dave face their own dramas when they go hunting for a missing person known to be sleeping rough on the streets.
Binge Drinking: My Big Decision
BBC3
The series following teenage girls facing potentially life-changing decisions introduces 17-year-old Jess.
As Jess sets off on a personal journey, she is not alone - she's taking her mum and gran along with her. Taking a break from everyday life, the three women embark on a five-day road trip across the UK, immersing themselves in the world of alcohol and binge drinking. Offering help and support throughout the experience, it is the last chance mum and gran have to persuade Jess to think about making the right choice.
Mum Jane believes Jess's attitude towards the bottle is concerning, and as a nurse she knows the damage that alcohol causes. Having been sober for years, nan Valerie's stance on drinking and how to enjoy oneself couldn't be further removed from that of her out-of-control granddaughter.
Along the way, the family are introduced to people and situations designed to get them talking openly and honestly and to help inform their decision. They meet a consultant liver specialist to examine a healthy and a damaged liver; visit an A&E department; speak to staff and residents of a 'wet hostel' in Leeds; and hear first-hand about the perilous effects of drink driving.
After five days on the road, has the experience had any affect on Jess's decision?
Drinking With The Girls
BBC3
Documentary in which Cherry Healey explores women's attitudes to alcohol. Cherry drinks with women across the country and tries to find out what girls drink, where they drink and how their tastes change throughout their lives.
Drinking Yourself To Death
Channel 4
Dispatches examines how successful this approach will be, investigating the new drinking patterns in the UK which involve far more alcohol being drunk at home and the recent lobbying activities of the alcohol industry.
Reporter Deborah Davies investigates the switch in alcohol consumption from pubs to homes, examining the pricing of alcohol in supermarkets versus pubs, the huge increase in wine purchases and the emergence of pre-loading - drinking at home before heading out for an evening.
Dispatches investigates the medical profession's warnings of a liver disease time bomb by organising a unique experiment - using cutting edge technology not yet available on the NHS to test the health of people's livers in London and Birmingham.
In all, 70 passers-by take up the opportunity to have the test - with shocking results that suggest the incidence of liver disease is even higher than doctors had feared.
Dr Rajiv Jalan, who supervises some of the testing is astonished by this snapshot of the liver health of the nation, saying: "I'm stunned. We are looking at an epidemic that's going to face us in 15/20 years which the health service will find impossible to deal with."
With hospital admissions for alcoholic liver disease doubling in the last ten years, Deborah attends a liver transplant operation - the only hope of survival for many patients. She speaks to the beneficiary of the healthy liver, a social drinker whose cirrhosis crept up on her - by the time she knew she was ill, her only chance of survival depended on the transplant.
Liver specialists at hospitals across the country tell Deborah they are seeing a surge in young professional patients with severe forms of alcoholic liver disease - people who don't consider themselves to be heavy drinkers.
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