'Malpractice' is the ultimate what-would-you-do hospital drama

In British series Malpractice, the intensity of a high-pressure hospital emergency intertwines with personal agendas and staff secrets.

Dr Lucinda Edwards (Niamh Algar). Credit: ITV

What impresses so much about Malpractice, and what sets it head-and-shoulders above many other medical dramas, is its intense, comprehensive attention to detail. It feels eminently truthful down to the microscopic details of the microwave meals doctors grab when they get home, exhausted by the weight of life-and-death decisions, or the pompous half-smile of senior surgeons as they correct younger doctors in front of an entire nursing team.

All this believability was honed on the job. Creator and writer Grace Ofori-Attah was a trainee psychiatrist who ultimately left the medical system to write fantastic television series. Her protagonists - Dr Lucinda Edwards (Niamh Algar) in season one and Dr James Ford (Tom Hughes) in season two - are flawed, imperfect people and doctors, but they are utterly devoted to their patients. They want to believe that everyone around them holds the same priorities of serving the people, however sanctimonious that sounds.

Though Australians are quick to criticise our public health services, it's fair to say that the shortcomings of Australian hospitals have nothing on the UK system. That said, the battle between underfunded public hospitals and shareholder-backed private providers has few winners beyond those shareholders. It's not a stretch to imagine finding ourselves under the tender care of Dr. Edwards in A&E (Accident and Emergency), or meeting Dr Ford as he ambles from one ward to another. Both young doctors find themselves at the centre of investigations after patients in their care die. It becomes the task of the General Medical Council's MIU (Medical Investigations Unit) to get to the bottom of who was where, who did what, when certain events occurred and who is to blame for a death at the hospital.

It is to Ofori-Attah's enormous credit that her investigators, both former doctors, are equally as human, flawed, well-meaning and vigilant as the subjects they're investigating. Helen Behan is wonderful as the straight-shooting, dedicated Dr Norma Callahan. She is partnered by Dr George Adjei (Jordan Kouame), who quit his medical practice after the traumatic death of a young patient for which he still blames himself. Their relationship - both as colleagues and friends - is just as interesting as the personal relationships of the doctors, their patients, their families, and colleagues. In both cases of death over season one and season two, it seems relatively clear-cut from the beginning - surely, this was just a terrible accident that nobody can be blamed for? So, it is easy to identify with Callahan and Adjei as they try to puzzle out a motive, a perpetrator, a reason for how this young woman victim has died alone, in the early hours of the morning, despite the duty of care upon the doctor in charge.

Jordan Kouame as George Adjei and Helen Behan as Norma Callahan. Credit: ITV

What's evident, over both seasons, is the enormous and near-unbearable pressure on doctors to work long, relentless hours in hospitals that are literally falling apart around them. Trainee doctors are patronised by senior doctors, forced to make decisions that they're dangerously inexperienced to make. Doctors, like their patients, are not immune to addiction, insomnia, betrayal, heartbreak, exhaustion and dishonesty with loved ones and colleagues alike.

Malpractice is a whodunnit, in which the net grows wider and wider with each episode and the "goodies" and "baddies" are not so easily identified with each clue Callahan and Adjei discover. Just as they are building the case, so are we.

Tom Hughes as Dr James Ford. Credit: ITV / Peter Marley

This series offers a level of intelligent, empathetic writing and exemplary performances from Dr Edwards’ Niamh Algar and Dr Ford’s Tom Hughes. However dilapidated and underfunded the public health system may be in the UK and Australia, it’s doctors like these that give us faith that the profession remains in the hands of brilliant humans.

Through the personal experiences of trainee doctors, we're asked to unknot questions of what’s ethical, what’s forgivable, and who we can trust in our most desperate moments. The acting, the script and the puzzle of who did what and why will keep you glued to the screen to the very end.

Seasons 1 and 2 of Malpractice are streaming at SBS On Demand.