Alan in Belfast: Late Shift – an understaffed health service stresses a diligent and skilled nurse as well as her patients (Queen’s Film Theatre until Thursday 14 August)

In Switzerland, the trains run like clockwork, but the health service is under many of the same pressures as the rest of western Europe. When Floria arrives at work for her late afternoon/evening nursing shift, she steps out of her civvies into hospital scrubs. The team will tend to more than 20 patients – and their relatives – across the two sides of her surgical floor. The beds are full and they’re short staffed. Only two nurses and a student are on shift.

There’s an observational documentary feel to Judith Kaufmann’s cinematography in Petra Volpe’s 91-minute Late Shift, with long shots following Floria down the corridor and in and out of rooms.

An Adam Kay-inspired version of this story – or an end-of-season episode of Casualty – might have had blood spurting out of patients and dripping off the ceiling tiles. Volpe offers a much lower-key yet still thrilling depiction of what happens when a diligent and skilled health professional (“no one else ever managed that on their first attempt” admits one patient through gritted teeth) has to deal with interruption upon interruption.

The student is an extra pair of hands, but mostly burden as they’re inexperienced, unfamiliar with how everything operates, and would benefit from a lot more supervision. But today they’re being schooled in working at haste and failing to meet everyone’s needs and demands in a timely manner. The frazzling pace of work throughout the long shift perhaps explains why staff phone in sick.

One of the most valuable things Floria could offer patients is time and presence. There are people with bad news, good news, and nearly worse, still waiting with no news. But elsewhere on the floor, there’s always someone else who needs wheeled down to get a CT scan before a colleague goes home, someone else who needs painkillers, the ward round hasn’t yet been completed, relatives are phoning in to the ward phone extension she carries in her pocket, and an entitled patient in a dark wood-panelled private ward is still waiting for his cup of tea.

Floria is portrayed by Leonie Benesch with a huge dose of empathy and compassion as she speeds between the well-equipped wards checking vital signs and reacting to the latest push of a patient call button. Benesch handles the medical equipment and paraphernalia convincingly and never looks like an actor playing the role of this fraught nurse.

But accidents happen, patients are overlooked, other colleagues’ carelessness has to be tidied up, and in one – rather unconvincing and almost unnecessary instance – grace runs out and an unfiltered Floria explodes with frustration. The soundtrack tries a bit too hard to signpost that everything is about to go pear-shaped. Countering the mounting pressure, there are beautiful moments when patients help each other and reach beyond their own conditions to care for the staff.

Northern Ireland audiences will be well aware of the seemingly uncontrollable waiting lists that ill serve citizens. But the effect on care of short staffing may be less well understood unless you or a family member has been an in-patient. The moments of neglect, the instances of upset relatives, and the struggle to get everything done in the time are neither new nor shocking. The original German title of the film is Heldin. ‘Heroine’ is a more striking analysis of Floria’s performance amid a crumbling health system.

Late Shift is being screened in Queen’s Film Theatre until Thursday 14 August.