Casualty has beaten fellow soaps such as Coronation Street and EastEnders to win a top award.

The BBC medical drama won the 2024 Broadcast Award for Best Soap/Continuing Drama, with the publication noting that the series went through “revolutionary changes last year”.

These include “innovations in narrative style, filming and production techniques helping to deliver a visceral portrayal of life on the NHS frontline”, while Broadcast also shared particular praise for the show’s diversity as well as its improvised episode.

BBC

The judges said: “Such a powerful episode, a bold and innovative way to get a hard-hitting message across in a soap”.

“A documentary-style format telling the lives of frontline paramedics drove home the stresses and strains on an overloaded system and the staff struggling to save lives,” another judge added.

Coronation Street was among the soaps shortlisted, with the acid attack storyline noted as a “standout narrative”, while EastEnders’ Lola Pearce-Brown death storyline was also commended.

BBC

Also on the shortlist were Emmerdale and its man club storyline, Hollyoaks and its tackling of incel subculture, and Waterloo Road and its mix of social issues and humour.

In other Casualty news, the soap has added The Crown‘s Jamie Glover, Killing Eve‘s Manpreet Bachu and comedian Sammy T Dobson in the roles of Clinical Lead Patrick Onley, and junior doctors Tariq Hussein and Nicole Piper, respectively.

They come after the exit of Nigel Harman as Max Cristie, while Derek Thompson, who plays Charlie Fairhead, is set to step away after 37 years on the soap this year.

Casualty airs on Saturdays on BBC One and streams on BBC iPlayer.