Mission Improbable: Minor Injuries Unit (MIU)

21st JUNE 2025

Mission Improbable to open a Minor Injury Unit?
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As with any good plot twist, was that ever the mission at all?
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The trailer has got all sorts of attention, even 78-year old Derek Tillis from Hom Green can't wait to the latest instalment of the franchise, a political thriller set in Ross-on-Wye!
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Leaked footage of an action scene shows a barely recognisable Tomm Crooze, pulling off one of his now famous face-changing masks to turn from a balding middle-aged politician back into his age-defyingly-handsome self before he is seen sprinting full-tilt down Copse Cross Street with that 'signature' run.
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How did this film come about?
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We spoke to director Brian d’Palmer and he gave us the background:
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"We've always wanted to bring the Mission franchise to Ross-on-Wye. A few years back I was given a screenplay based on a political controversy relating to the Ross Community Hospital - but we couldn't quite make the screenplay work". He explained, “My L.A. office received a fascinating letter from a Ross born-and-bred lady called Betty, she was saying how she and her friends from the knitting club thought a wannabe councillor had tried to gather support by claiming that there was a five year plan to make the Ross hospital bedless when there wasn’t. She said lots of people were highly suspicious and told us that after the election was done nobody in Ross heard about it again”.
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“We looked into it and it was a weird one because the NHS Wye Valley Trust had to immediately come out and basically correct them, and say there was no such plan. It's rare that corrective statements have to be made like that so we thought the story was going to go somewhere, but it didn't in the end. It hit the local papers and people were not happy but it didn't quite have the excitement we were looking for. Perhaps it would have had more potential as a documentary or a rom-com?”
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We asked the award-winning director and screenwriter what was different this time around?
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"Well, this time with 'MIU'", as he calls it for short, "you've got the same worrying questions raised over whether it is just something engineered to get attention and political support, and in that sense it does seem like same political football different day, but you know, it felt like the right time to do it”. Pausing to taking a sip of coffee, he looked up added “That and of course Tomm liked the challenge of seeing how we could weave some major stunts into a small market town, something new".
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We queried De Palma on whether it is difficult to get an audience to follow some of the details behind the story:
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"Not really. You've got your basic questions, like do the people promoting themselves as wanting to open an MIU even know what an ICB stands for? Did they even bother to approach the ICB first? It at least seems not. Sorry!", Brian interrupts himself, "I am taking ICB not IMF here! I just realised I'm probably losing you if you're into Mission but not into Council stuff! Let me explain, the ICB or Integrated Care Board are the people in the NHS that would make a Minor Injuries Unit happen, without them, it can’t. I think once the audience wraps their head around that simple principle they can start to get drawn into a few other details that set the film up".

What details?

"Well, the ICBs themselves are undergoing a huge amount of cuts, we're talking 45-60% kind of range, so there is absolutely no money. Then you have your Wye Valley Trust that would put the infrastructure in place and would day-to-day have to run the Minor Injuries Unit, and they are completely on their knees too, surviving on agency staff.”
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“It didn't take our researchers more than a few minutes to realise that any staffing of a Ross-on-Wye Minor Injuries Unit in light of all these restraints doesn't make sense, and hence it won't happen" Brian said. "Hey," he said in a relaxed American tone, "if a member of medical staff could treat 5 people on weekend night in Ross vs 50 people if they were in Hereford it's clear that even if resources were available, which they aren't, they'd be best placed in Hereford, right? What do you English say? Good ol’ common sense?”.
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We quizzed Brian on whether as an American he really finds any of this small town British stuff interesting.
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"Not really!", he laughed, "but it sets up the ridiculousness of the situation. When you're making a Mission film you want to be able to walk that line where something is so stupid it can't be real but is real”.
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“We’re in the entertainment business, but it's a good thing if cinema can help open people's eyes through story-telling to the world of politics and political games, even if we do need a larger-than-life villain and a major Hollywood star in order to get people glued to their seats. Hey, I’m not saying ‘MIU’ is up there with JFK, but we definitely bring the action, and Tomm’s on top of his game still”.
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We asked what action we can look forward to in Mission Impossible: Minor Injuries Unit.
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"Well I can't give it all away, but all the stunts have been done on location in Herefordshire. We wanted to do something with water again, so we closed the main Street of Ross-on-Wye which has this slope to it that's just right. We brought in a pair of 4-million gallon tanks for a flash flood and had to shoot in secret. Tomm is being attacked by councillors when he rides a jet ski down Broad Street on market day. It's probably one of his best stunts yet. We try to keep it light-hearted so we've got a bystander continually trying to blame the flood on Welsh Water before they get flushed down then jammed in a blocked drain in Brookend Street. It’s like our little knowing wink to 70s James Bond irreverence, which I know you Brits like”.
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Mission Improbable: Minor Injuries Unit opens in UK theatres (but not The Roxy) on 17th December 2025.
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On a serious note...
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Here are links and information that relates to when it appeared Ross Community Hospital appears to have been used to attract political support with questionable substance. Many in the community in Ross-on-Wye still remember how they felt about these the events. Many well-connected people in the town said that activity in trying to get votes for the petition stopped once the councillor got a position on Ross Town Council.
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In 2017 A councillor, while in a phase of canvassing and campaigning for votes to gather support, launched a petition on Change.org which stated "The NHS Five Year Future View plan seeks to making the Ross on Wye's Community Hospital bedless!" (Here is the link to that petition, and screenshot below)

Days later, the Ross Gazette covered how the Wye Valley Trust had came out with a statement "There are NO plans for Ross Community Hospital to lose all its beds." This is highly unusual from such a body to need to make a corrective statement in this fashion (Here is the link to that article)

A Hereford Times Article (link here) was titled "Health chiefs say there are no plans for Ross community hospital to lose all of its beds", completely at odds with: "The NHS Five Year Future View plan seeks to make the Ross-on-Wye Community Hospital bedless!"
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Strangely, in reaction to this correction by the Wye Valley Trust the petition was updated with "First round victory after one week" seeming to imply that their action had caused some kind of reverse-turn by the Wye Valley Trust, but this had not happened at all, please refer to the Wye Valley Trust Statement. (Link here) (See screenshot below).

In another article documenting the controversy a political statement read "What we are saying is we would oppose cuts to beds at Ross Community Hospital. So whether they are considered or not it doesn't mean we shouldn't have an opinion on it" (Here is that article).

Other additional articles:

Ross Gazette: Petition to save the beds at Ross-on-Wye Community Hospital
Hereford Times: Online petition set up to keep beds at community hospital in Ross-on-Wye
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