Holby City (BBC1) - There was a time when hospital dramas revolved around illness.

Whether it was horrific injuries or mystery diseases, it was all about the patient. Naturally, this could only go on for so long. There are only so many ways that limbs can be mangled by ordinary household objects, and there are only so many tropical ailments in the medical dictionaries.

Instead, the focus switched to the staff, and we turned to them to provide the storylines. Life on the ward became about a different sort of sickness, about egos, love affairs and insecurities. In so doing, the writers acknowledged both that this was actually where the real drama lay in life outside the television studios, and that this was the only way to sustain a long-running programme.

So it's only natural that Holby City should take this to its logical conclusion. The Casualty spin-off is now cutting out the middle man altogether, and making the staff become the patients.

Last night saw Dr Mubbs Hussein recovering in hospital after his heart attack. Still in denial over the changes he needs to make to his life, he dispatches a couple of medical students, the Abbot and Costello of Darwin ward, to fetch him a bacon sandwich, before making his escape for a night on the town. It's only when he collapses on the stairs, this time from a panic attack rather than another heart episode, that he makes the leap and phones his mum.

Then there's Tricia, ex-wife of nurse Mark, and mother of ward sister Chrissie. She's in hospital for a breast reconstruction after her mastectomy, but when the bed is no longer available, the only option is a private hospital, for which she needs a favour from former lover Carlos. Naturally, this provokes a battle for Tricia's affections between Mark and Carlos, whose bizarre facial hair is matched only by Big Brother's Anthony's.

Of course, Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt might have something to say if our hospitals were just treating their staff, family and friends, so there are other patients as well. There's Heather, the alcoholic who's neglecting her son after the death of her husband in a car crash, and Rob, who's become addicted to fund-raising while waiting for a heart transplant, much to his wife's dismay.

But while they provide their own mini-stories, they are really peripheral to the main drama. That they are given less attention than the central characters can be the only explanation for the following exchange between Rob and wife Liz, after his heart transplant when she finds out he wants to carry on marathon running and put off having children:

Rob: "Why are you so upset?"

Liz: "If you don't know that, your new heart is not worth anything."

There are enough lines like this, as well as lingering, meaningful looks, to give the impression that Holby City is the lovechild of Casualty and Eldorado, although if any more relatives are admitted to hospital it will be Family Affairs on penicillin.

Published: 22/06/2005