As series 2 unfolded the first development was the departure of Baz, who had moved to London and left Charlie a note. In the first episode Ewart and the old nightshift team lobbied to reopen the nightshift and won. New General Manager Elizabeth Straker was very dubious about the cost effectiveness of the night shift at first but she changed her views once she had followed Ewart on a shift. In fact Ewart and Elizabeth were soon falling in love.
Duffy was shocked when she recognised one patient as being the man who raped her in series one. The man died.
Charlie, still on the rebound from Baz, had a brief relationship with young student nurse Karen O'Malley. Karen and fellow student nurse Cyril James both passed their nursing exams but Karen had become disillusioned with nursing and decided to look at other forms of work instead.
New SHO Mary Tomlinson found it difficult to settle in to the close knit team and had a particularly frosty relationship with Duffy. But Duffy and Mary became friends after Mary risked her life to renew a patients drip under a huge pile of rubble.
Undoubtedly the most horrific episode of the series came early on when paramedic Sandra Mute was stabbed by a drunk patient in her own ambulance. Fellow paramedic Andrew Ponting tried to stop the bleeding while a young medical student drove frantically to Holby Casualty. Mute died in crash and Ponting was devastated. Disillusioned and embittered by the sad incident, he quit the ambulance force and in his and Mute's places came Keith Cotterill and Shirley Franklin.
Duffy had problems as her boyfriend Peter revealed that he had HIV. Fearful of having the disease herself, Duffy was relieved when her HIV test proved negative.
Meanwhile, Megan's husband Ted wanted to move to Cheltenham but Megan wanted to stay in Holby. Their marriage was going through a rocky spell. Then Megan had to endure an internal investigation over the death of a patient who fell from a trolley. She was eventually cleared of negligence charges.
And Ewart, after going through a divorce with his wife, suffered a mild heart attack but fully recovered.
Written by Christopher Watson