As the first episode of Malpractice begins, Dr. Lucinda Edwards (Niamh Algar) gets dressed. She tells the others about a procedure they need to do. Dr. Ramya Morgan (Priyanka Patel) offers to do it, but Lucinda isn’t going to let her just yet. Lucinda tells her to grab the equipment and meet her there. Dr. Oscar Beattie (Scott Chambers) jokes about Ramya. After completing the procedure, Lucinda goes over the details with Ramya. Ramya says he has a bottle of vodka in his bag so she doesn’t understand why they bother treating patients like him. Lucinda reminds her it is their job and they’re not there to judge. While handling calls, Lucinda takes a call from Rose.

She doesn’t know how this happened again and says she won’t do it. As Ramya enters the room, Lucinda tells her mom that she can’t help her with this. After the call, Ramya asks Lucinda if she has seen Dr. Harrow (James Purefoy). Lucinda says she just missed him since he went to pick up his kid before her phone rings again. Moments later, Dr. Lucinda Edwards tells Oscar to go home since he has to come in early tomorrow. Lucinda has a smoke outside. She gets a message from Rose thanking her. Eventually, another patient comes in after being found unconscious at home. It is a suspected opioid overdose. Lucinda begins working on Edith right away. When the alarm goes off, Lucinda is told they need to go now although she is hesitant to leave the patient.

Lucinda goes to the lobby where she is told to wait for the police. She finds a man waving a gun around. The man yells for Lucinda to help his friend who is bleeding on the floor. He threatens her. Lucinda zones out for a minute before others rush forward to help the man on the ground. They realize there are no beds so they’re going to have to move someone. Lucinda is told that Ramya should be able to care for the overdose patient since she is stable anyway. Lucinda marks out Edith’s report to say it was a deliberate overdose. Lucinda walks Ramya through it since she has never treated an opioid overdose before. Then, she rushes back to the gunshot victim.

She calls Leo to tell him to pick up his phone because they need him in there. Matron Beth Ralph (Hannah Walters) helps Lucinda while Ramya works on the overdose patient. Other doctors come in to take over for Lucinda. She asks Ramya when she isn’t with the overdose patients. Ramya reminds her she wants to know when she improved. Lucinda rushes over and learns that she has gone into arrest. Ramya admits she only gave the patient one dose. Lucinda told her to repeat the dose if she didn’t stabilize. Leo finally makes it to the hospital as Lucinda struggles to help the patient. After the patient dies, Lucinda tells Ramya that this is all her fault. Later at home, Tom (Lorne MacFadyen) tells Lucinda that it’ll be fine because she did nothing wrong.

He says she saved that boy’s life, but Lucinda says Edith shouldn’t have died. Tom thinks they’ll call her a hero once they find out what she did. When Lucinda makes it to the hospital, she runs into Dr. George Adjei (Jordan Kouame) who works there as an investigator now. George is assigned to her case and he thinks it’ll be fine. Dr. Norma Callahan (Helen Behan) thanks her for coming in and explains she is over the West Yorkshire Medical Investigation Unit. Kathy Miller (Adei Bundy) gives her a form to sign so they can access her personnel records. It is explained that Edith’s father lodged a complaint about the treatment she received. They receive several complaints like this every year and they are duty-bound to investigate each one.

Lucinda tells them what happened that night and how the gunman came in with the boy. She says Edith was stable when she left to go to reception. When they returned, they have a dilemma. The gunshot patient needed a bed because Edith had taken the last one. Lucinda decided to move Edith. Witnesses claim she struggled to make the decision and Edith’s condition worsened in that time. Lucinda didn’t see it that way. Dr. Morgan claimed she tried to alert her to Edith’s condition, but she was distracted looking at her paperwork. Lucinda doesn’t remember anything like that. Norma wonders if there was a missed opportunity to give Edith another dose of Naloxone during the delay.

Lucinda argues that they’re talking about seconds. Norma asks why she didn’t ask Dr. Harris for help since he was the consultant on duty. Lucinda has to admit that Dr. Harris left half an hour early and wasn’t there. Lucinda says he went to pick up his son, but it wasn’t a big deal since they look out for one another. She calls Dr. Harris who came back as soon as he could. Then, Lucinda is asked about someone changing the presenting complaint from accidental to deliberate overdose. She admits she did it because Edith had been treated for addiction and had a history of depression. She also had a previous suicide attempt. If Lucinda had said her overdose was accidental, she would never fit the criteria for psychiatric review prior to her discharge.

Lucinda tells them how she instructed Dr. Morgan to give Edith 800 micrograms of Naloxone and stay with Edith so she could repeat the dose if her breathing rate dropped. Dr. Morgan refutes that. Instead, she claims she was told to give one dose and to tell Lucinda when her breathing improved. Lucinda says she didn’t write the plan in the notes because there wasn’t enough time. She is asked about not letting Dr. Morgan fit the drain because she didn’t think she was competent. Lucinda admits she didn’t. She explains why she thought Dr. Morgan was capable of handling the overdose. It didn’t concern her that Dr. Morgan had never handled an opioid overdose before because her instructions were clear.

Dr. Norma Callahan questions why Dr. Morgan didn’t wait long enough. She either didn’t understand the instructions or the instructions weren’t clear. Norma says they’ll need to look into the events of that night. Dr. George Adjei explains that they’ll go over everything and decide whether a full fitness to practice investigation is needed. They’ll notify her in writing by the end of the week. Once they leave, Norma and George sit down to discuss Lucinda’s actions that night. George is confident he can be objective despite his connection to Lucinda. At home, Lucinda texts someone who wants to talk while her daughter takes a bath. She gets upset with Gabby so she yells for Tom to look after her.

Lucinda takes medicine in hopes of calming down. In the morning, she gets a text from Rose who says they need to talk. Dr. Morgan complains to Oscar that Edith’s death is going to be on her record forever. He thinks she got off lightly. Ramya wonders if she should reflect on Lucinda assaulting her. She didn’t put that in her statement, but she should have because Lucinda deserves it. Oscar recommends keeping that to herself since Ramya was looking after the patient. Lucinda interrupts to ask Ramya to do something she doesn’t want to. Ramya doesn’t feel comfortable sticking a needle into a 12-year-old’s spine. She eventually agrees to do it. Dr. Harris speaks to Dr. Willett about throwing someone under the bus if necessary.

Leo wants to make sure it isn’t Lucinda because she doesn’t deserve that. When Norma and George arrive, Leo says he has to leave. Norma mentions that he left early the night Edith Owusu died. Leo admits he had to pick up his son from a rugby match. Lucinda walks Ramya through the procedure. Once it is over, Ramya complains about Lucinda forcing her to do it even though she didn’t want to. Dr. Willett interrupts with George Adjei and Norma Callahan. Norma confirms they’ve decided to do a formal investigation into her fitness to practice. George will observe her in A&E as well as the whole department. Later, George begins shadowing her while she is working. George admits the work-life balance got to him when he was working.

Lucinda asks him about killing a patient and whether that is true. He asks why she is asking if she knows. Lucinda explains that they’ve all been there but they don’t quit. Then, she works with Oscar Beattie. She tells him that he knows his stuff so he should be more confident. George asks Oscar if he often fixes Dr. Lucinda Edwards’ mistakes. Oscar doesn’t think it was a mistake though. He makes it clear that she is a good doctor and keeps the team’s morale up. When George asks about Ramya’s relationship with Lucinda, Oscar recommends talking to Ramya. George mentions that Dr. Edwards took time off during the pandemic. Oscar says everyone took time off at some point so you can’t hold that against them.

George tries to find out why she took so much time off during the pandemic. He doesn’t get an answer though. Lucinda texts Rose and meets with Rob. She thinks they need to tell them the truth, but Rob argues that they should just wait and let it blow over. She wants him to say that he prescribed Edith a little extra methadone. Lucinda worries that she’ll get struck off if the MIU keeps investigating and finds out about the other overdoses. Rob worries it could be worse if the MIU goes through his prescribing. Lucinda says he gave her those pills so she could work. Rob pleads with her to stick it out because they’ll both be fine. Norma talks to George about putting himself on the dating apps. They talk about how it went today with Lucinda.

He mentions Lucinda’s sick leave during COVID and how the notes are heavily redacted. George caught Oscar changing a prescription that Lucinda had made. Norma says that isn’t a mistake to make at her level because it could cost lives. She tells George to speak to Dr. Morgan and get her side of things tomorrow. The next day, George says Lucinda hasn’t once given the wrong instructions on an opioid overdose. She goes over what happened the night in question. Dr. Morgan says Oscar stays late when Lucinda is on, but she made him go home before nine that night. She knows Lucinda mentioned the overdose case before nine. George returns to Norma and Kathy to tell them what he just learned. He wonders how Lucinda knew an overdose was coming before nine.

Norma suggests Ramya is wrong because Lucinda couldn’t know because the call was put in. George says there was a call before the 999 call from an anonymous male reporting Edith’s overdose. Lucinda got another call from the same number at 8:32. Lucinda told Ramya about the overdose even though A&E doesn’t know this until 9:07. They question whether Lucinda and Edith knew each other. Norma wants to get Lucinda in for another interview tomorrow. In the morning, Lucinda calls Rob to say she has decided she is going to tell them the truth. Tom notices her phone ringing with a call from Rose. Lucinda grabs it and arranges another meeting with Rob (Douglas Hansell). She begins taking more pills.

Lucinda leaves without saying goodbye to Tom. Rob meets her and says he thought they agreed to keep quiet. Lucinda says she can’t because they’re looking at her phone records. Rob says he can sort it out, but he is going to need time. He asks her to pretend to be sick. He threatens to say she is an addict before he is hit by a car. Lucinda is shocked. She runs away from the scene.

 

Malpractice Review

Malpractice stars Niamh Algar as Dr. Lucinda Edwards who finds herself caught up in a risky situation that could ruin her career and life. One night, Lucinda has to juggle two difficult patients after a man bursts into reception with a handgun. She puts Dr. Ramya Morgan in charge of the overdose patient while dealing with the gunshot patient personally. When the overdose patient, Edith Owusu, passes away, Lucinda is investigated.

Her link to Dr. Rob Thornbury could be exposed and it could bring both of them down. The episode started off well enough with Lucinda attempting to deal with an overdose patient. The gunman entering reception was unbelievable, but easy enough to overlook because the story was intriguing enough at that point. By the end of the episode, the story was on the verge of being ludicrous though.

It’s like the writers saw what Maternal did with Dr. Afridi’s case and thought they had to take three or four steps further by adding in a possible corrupt doctor, more overdoses, and a likely fatal car accident all in one episode. If that sounds ridiculous, that’s because it was by the time the episode was over. The investigation into everything is trying to be too intricate with details that will matter very little when all is said and done.

Personally, I had hopes that this would be at least somewhat serious since it is tackling subject matter that should be treated seriously. Instead, the story is far too unbelievable to take seriously. The performances, camerawork, and soundtrack are decent. It may be possible to overlook the believability issue if the story gets more interesting in the next episode so I wouldn’t write this one off just yet.

The opening episode scores a 5 out of 10. Recaps of Malpractice are available on Reel Mockery here. Find out how to support our independent site at this link. Find out more about advertising on Reel Mockery here.