Malpractice season 2 episode 2 recap: Who is James's secret girlfriend?

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 new mum Rosie dead and 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 2...

The second episode opens with the Chief Medical Director coming to the psychiatric unit to tell James, Kate and everyone who works there that the unit is under threat of closure because of continuous failings. He tells the staff that he wants to fight to keep the unit open, but that they are all under review and things aren't looking good.

James is shocked to find Ed Newman has come to see him at work and is demanding answers about Rosie's death. While James tries to tell him that MIU will have answers soon, Ed tells him he needs answers immediately, as he is struggling with baby Alfie, he can't eat or sleep and their toddler keeps asking when her mummy is coming home. He lashes out at James, wanting to know why no one noticed that she was suicidal, and says she was on the maternity ward for four days and no one noticed. James questions why she was on the ward for four days, as that seems a long time, but Ed gets angry and security has to come and remove him.

Meanwhile, the Chief Medical Director, Eric, is told that they should offer Ed compensation now rather than waiting for the MIU report and he reluctantly agrees to set up a meeting with him. Eric later meets with George and Norma and they are surprised to learn from him that James came to the hospital midway through the year before, which George points out is unusual for a registrar, but Eric says he had a good reference.

Meanwhile, Toni has gone into labour and has locked herself in the toilets. James is called and he is forced to break the door down with a fire extinguisher and make a makeshift bed on the floor of the corridor. The baby's head is already out, and he has to deliver the baby there and then, despite no one there being trained in obstetrics.

Bernadette and James deliver the baby, but the shoulders are stuck and James has to look on his phone for how to deal with it. Everyone is panicked as they have no training, but soon the baby is delivered just as Dr Sophia Hernandez arrives and is cross that the baby has already been born, but James points out there was no time.

At first, the baby doesn't have a heartbeat, but eventually they find a faint one... and it looks like it's going to be okay. However, Toni is losing a lot of blood and Sophia says she needs to be in theatre and needs oxygen, something they don't have at the psychiatric unit.

In the end, they have to wait for an ambulance, and Kate and James are horrified that they have another potential death on their hands, and Sophia glares at them as she gets into the ambulance with an unconscious Toni.

Bernadette points out that Toni should have had her one to one with her so they knew the moment she went into labour, but Kate admits she had to take her one to one away as she wasn't due to give birth for another 4 weeks and the unit is under unimaginable pressure and she had no choice. Kate tells James not to mention this to the MIU, but he points out that he just saved a baby's life... however, she says they won't see it like that, and this couldn't have come at a worse possible time for them.

In theatre, Sophia is struggling to stop Toni's bleeding and so her colleague says they have no choice but to perform a hysterectomy. She is worried as they didn't get Toni's consent and while they are preparing for the surgery, Sophia tells her boss she is worried that the psychiatric team are going to blame her for what happened with Toni. However, he tells her that James is already under investigation and she should get her version of events into the right people before he does.

At the psychiatric unit, James sees Bernadette about to report Kate for the fact she took Toni's one-to-one away, but he stops her, saying they should be sticking together, not reporting one another, so Bernadette deletes her complaint before sending it.

Norma and George are leaving the hospital for the day when Norma asks if George would like to come for dinner with his partner. As he is accepting, his phone rings and it is Sophia asking for a meeting with them. He tells her they are still on hospital grounds and so can see her now, but she wants to meet somewhere off-site tomorrow.

When she eventually meets with George the following day, she throws James under the bus by saying that he must be the one who cancelled Toni's one to one and so therefore they missed her signs of early labour, and it sees James's good deed of stopping Bernadette from reporting Kate might come back to haunt him.

George asks Sophia about Rosie and once again, Sophia blames James for rushing his consultation with Rosie and also blames him for not stressing how important it was for her to take the medication prescribed.

While George and Norma talk about Sophia's complaint against James, they find his HR records from his previous job and it turns out there was a serious incident that happened before he left, but all details have been redacted from the file. They decide to look through old press reports to see if they can find out what the incident was.

Meanwhile, Toni has come round after her hysterectomy and James thinks she is depressed and not ready to be told that she had had the life-changing operation. Sophia once again argues with him, lying that she tried to get approval from Toni for the hysterectomy before she was sedated and wants her back on the psych ward asap. Kate and James refuse, saying she needs to meet her baby and be looked after by the obstetrics team, but Sophia isn't happy and they all argue.

Later, Norma and George speak to Kate about Rosie's death and she doesn't show him the same grace that he did to her earlier in the episode when she tells them that although she has never known him be late for work so doesn't know why it took him an hour to get to the hospital when he was on call, she does say that she didn't ask him to go to Toni's sectioning that she could have gone to Rosie's consultation if he had asked, which isn't strictly true. They also ask whose decision it was to remove Toni's one-to-one, and again, Kate lies and says it was a management decision because of costs, and completely covers the fact that it was her decision alone.

They later meet with James again to clarify the contradictions in Kate's meeting, and he is shocked when he realises what she has told them, but covers by calling it a misunderstanding. They question him about his whereabouts the night he was on call and when he sees they have CCTV footage of his car, he is forced to admit that he was at his girlfriend's flat. They also work out that he left his previous job because of a decision he made, which resulted in a nurse ending up in ITU after being attacked by a patient. James tries to argue his case, but his words fall on deaf ears and George and Norma tell him that, because of the evidence stacking up against him, they have no choice but to launch a full fitness to practice investigation, leaving him devastated as they say the case will go before a tribunal.

James is cross after his meeting and takes it out on the staff in Willow ward, cross that the maintenance team have left plastic tape over the door to the ladies that he had to bash down to get Toni out, pointing out it is a suicide risk on a psych ward. He then realises another patient has been on a trolley in A&E for more than 24 hours waiting for transport, and calls the department telling them to wheel him over, despite this being against protocol.

Over with George and Norma, George points out that Rosie was on the postnatal ward for an unusually long time after giving birth, despite her notes all saying that she and her baby were doing well. George says that Rosie was discharged by a midwife, Maria Carter, after talking with Sophia, but that Maria has now left the hospital and will only speak with them if she has her lawyer present. Norma points out that this is odd and asks him to set up a meeting with Maria ASAP.

George and Norma meet with Maria, who turns out to be the same woman who was watching Sophia's house in episode 1. Maria is nervous and quiet, and clearly doesn't want to be there. Norma says that Rosie has sadly died and that there is a doctor being investigated because of this, and Maria assumes they mean Sophia and not James, and launches into a speech about how she told Sophia that Rosie needed psychiatric help and needed to be referred, but that Sophia had cancelled the referral. Her lawyer tells her not to say any more and terminates the meeting, leaving Norma and George with more questions than answers.

That evening, James is dragged into a dinner party his sister is having and finds himself at a nightclub after they talk him into going. As they all take drugs and dance, he stands by the bar and has flashes where he keeps seeing Rosie on the night that she died, with blood all over her.

One of his sister's friends, Fizz, is flirty with him and comes over to kiss him, but she has already taken three pills and drags him home in a cab. As they are kissing in the taxi, she collapses and he has to get the taxi to take her to A&E.

There, the doctors ask what her name is and what she has taken, which James replies she is called Fizz but that is all he knows because he has only just met her. They ask his name and he makes one up as he doesn't want her associated with him as he is being investigated.

Instead, he sneaks out of the hospital and goes back to his girlfriend's house, but when he gets there, we see he is dating his boss, Kate!

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.