Malpractice season 2 episode 1 recap: a shocking chain of events leads to a harrowing death

Malpractice season 2 sees Dr Norma Callahan (Helen Behan) and Dr George Adjei (Jordan Kouamé) from the Medical Investigation Unit (MIU) return for a brand new case - this time looking into the actions of Dr James Ford (Tom Hughes), a Psychiatric Registrar in a North Yorkshire hospital.

James finds himself torn between a new mother attending a routine postnatal check-up and the sectioning of a psychotic woman during a hectic on-call shift - and soon a devastating turn of events leaves James fighting for his job. Is he a doctor with a God complex or the victim of wider problems?

Here is everything that happened in Malpractice season 2 episode 1...

The first episode opens with Dr James Ford arriving at work, and he seems to have a good relationship with all his patients as he greets them.

Meanwhile, over at the main hospital Dr Sophia Hernandez is checking over new mum Rosie Newman, who had a baby six weeks ago and also has a toddler. She is there with her husband, Ed, who is worried about her mental health, but Rosie plays it down when he mentions it to Hernandez. Sophia is worried and called Dr James Ford, but he has been caught up in covering his boss, who is meant to be going along to a block of flats to help the police section a pregnant woman who is on drugs and they believe to be a danger to herself and her baby.

Torn between which patient to see first, James picks the woman who needs to be sectioned as the police are waiting for him to arrive, plus she is in immediate danger. However, Dr Sophia Hernandez puts pressure on him to come and see Rosie before he leaves the hospital grounds and so he reluctantly dashes to see her.

While at the consultation, James asks Rosie routine questions about her state of mind, but as they talk, his pager and mobile keep buzzing, distracting everyone and annoying Rosie's husband, Ed. James leaves as soon as he can and tells Dr Sophia Hernandez that she needs to give Rosie some medication to help and that she should be booked in for a full assessment the following day.

When he arrives at the flats where the police are waiting, a crowd has gathered and they are turning on the officers. When Toni, the patient, doesn't answer the door, the police have to break the door down. Toni is scared as the police barge in, and her partner gets aggressive and pulls out a knife on the officers, leaving them with no choice but to taser him. A little girl appears at the commotion, and so James whisks her out of the flat to avoid her witnessing anything else.

Back at the hospital, James makes sure that Toni's sectioning paperwork goes through as he helps another doctor, Bernadette, who is struggling to diagnose a different patient. He is calm, has a good bedside manner, and tells Bernadette he is on call that evening, so if she has any problems with Toni to give him a call.

That night, James is woken by his phone, and it is Bernadette in a panic, frantically asking him to come into work immediately as they have a problem with a patient. He assumes it is Toni, as she will be coming down from her drug high, but it is Rosie, whom James saw earlier in the day. He rushes in, but is 45 minutes away, and lies to Bernadette that he will be less than half an hour. While they are on the phone, Rosie, who is lashing out, gets past the police and launches herself at Bernadette, attacking her in the ward.

When James arrives at the hospital, they have restrained Rosie with wrist and ankle ties and put a mesh mask over her head after she bit an officer. The police explain that Rosie's husband, Ed, called them earlier that night, telling them that Rosie was trying to drown baby Alfie. She was aggressive, and now Ed is at A&E getting Alfie checked out.

As James removes her restraints, Rosie seems calm now and James is confident she is responding to the sedatives he assumes she has been given. She recognises him from earlier, but it also seems like she is trying to talk to someone else who isn't there and suddenly lashes out again when she sees Bernadette. The police have to restrain Rosie again and James tells Bernadette to give her some more medication. She asks if they should add another sedative, but becasue he thinks she already has some in her system, he tells her no.

James calls for someone to take Rosie to Willow Ward, but one of his colleagues questions if they should wait for official transport, but he says no because it will take too long and he wants her in a secure ward before the sedatives wear off.

Down in paediatric A&E, Ed has been getting his son checked out, and he has been given the all clear. James goes to see him and asks what time Rosie took the medication he prescribed for her, wanting to know when she will need to take more. But he is shocked when Ed says he didn't see her take any tablets at home.

Meanwhile, Rosie is being taken to Willow Ward in a wheelchair, but isn't as sedated as James thought, so she soon hits the doctor pushing her and escapes out of the wheelchair and into a different part of the building. Realising what is about to happen, James races to find her, but it is too late and she is already on the roof of the building, preparing to jump off.

James panics and tries to talk Rosie down, who is on the edge of the roof ledge, but as he gets closer a sense of calm seems to come over her and he thinks that she is responding to his words, bit instead she leans backwards and throws herself off the building to the ground below, leaving James devastated.

The following morning, the police question James and everyone is in shock. Sophia arrives and blames James for what happened. He tells her that Rosie was a lot more unwell than either of them thought, and she bites back that this is on him becasue he only spent a few minutes reviewing her when she had raised concerns. They end up arguing about who is to blame, and Kate comes in to defuse the situation and sends James home for some sleep.

Norma and George from the Medical Investigation Unit (MIU) head to speak to Ed and ask about the review Rosie had with James the day before. He tells them James was in a rush and that when they got home, Rosie went straight to bed. He had assumed Rosie had taken the medication James prescribed, but wishes he had checked. Ed tells them that Rosie should never have been let home, and that she should have had a full review and been made to take the medication at the hospital. Norma assures Ed that they are going to get to the bottom of how this happened.

At a staff meeting, James and Sophia argue about Toni and whether she should have an elective C-section to deliver her baby. James says it is the safest way for her baby to be born, but Sophia has clearly got it in for James and they argue, leaving Kate to intervene again.

After the meeting, Kate tells James that the MIU wants to talk to him about Rosie's suicide, and she warns him to get his story straight and to tell them that Rosie wasn't showing any psychotic symptoms when they met, otherwise, he would have spotted them.

That night, James has a nightmare about Rosie's death and struggles to sleep. In his meeting with the MIU the following morning, James explains his version of what happened when he assessed Rosie the first time they met, while George and Norma tell him that Ed has claimed his phone and pager kept going off during the assessment. They grill him about the fact that he was juggling Rosie's assessment with Toni's sectioning and he tells them he wasn't in a rush. George and Norma question the decisions and assumptions that James made the night of Rosie's death, and he fights to defend himself, esepcially when Norma points out he had two oppourtunitites to asses Rosie and he failed to do so properly.

James asks Norma and George if he is under investigation and George says they will look into the events leading up to Rosie's death and also James's work history, and they will inform him of their decision after their assessment.

As Sophia gets home after picking up her kids, she is shocked to see a woman watching her house. She goes out to speak to her and tells her to leave, but the woman tells Sophia that she heard what happened to Rosie and that the truth will come out soon, and that her career will be over, leaving Sophia rattled.

Next, George and Norma question Bernadette and the doctor who walked Rosie to Willow Ward as she escaped the wheelchair. Both recount what happened the night Rosie died, but the timings with the medication don't fit if James arrived at the hospital half an hour after he was called. Bernadette tries to cover for James, knowing that all on-call doctors have to be within half an hour of the hospital, but eventually she is forced to admit to Norma and George that he didn't arrive until almost an hour after she called him.

At the end of the episode, we see James texting someone about his review with MIU and he replies that it went okay and that they thankfully didn't ask where he was - meaning he wasn't at home. But why?

All episodes of Malpractice season 2 are available on ITVX as a box set now.

The series will air on ITV1 on Sunday, May 4, Monday, May 5, Tuesday, May 6 all at 9pm. The final two episodes will air on Sunday, May 11, and Monday, May 12 also at 9pm on ITV1.