The second half of this two-part special was originally due to be transmitted as a 60 minute episode on 3 January 2010, with Part 1 being transmitted on 2 January 2010. BBC scheduling decided to move this episode to 9 January to accommodate a sporting event, which would have knocked on by a week the transmission of the rest of the episodes in the series. This would have caused the crossover episodes Love Is a Battlefield (2010) and Downstairs Upstairs (2010) to be mismatched, with the patient being treated in Holby before he was actually sent there from Casualty. So episodes 18 and 19 were edited together as a feature-length special transmitted on 2nd January - which ensured that the remaining transmission dates were not affected.
This episode was officially numbered 24.18 and 24.19 by the BBC, but it was originally transmitted as a single double-length episode with one set of opening titles and one set of credits; the writers were listed as "Written by Daisy Coulam and Dana Fainaru". However when the episode was repeated on the Drama channel in 2018, it was shown as two 50-minute parts "A Day in a Life - Part I" and "A Day in a Life - Part II" with separate writers Daisy Coulam for 24.18 and Dana Fainaru for 24.19.