Malpractice review: This gripping medical drama will make you think twice about a trip to A&E

It seems like a never-ending tension headache, between the potentially life-or-death decisions doctors and nurses take every minute of the day, and the backside-covering, buck-passing and blame-shifting that goes on after each of those decisions.

And anyone who raises concerns over the culture, over doctors' behaviour, over staffing, gets transferred or investigated.

However, while it may not make you yearn for the wards and vocation of helping people, it does make for a cracking drama.

Dr James Ford (Tom Hughes) is a senior psychiatrist on the mental health wing of a large regional hospital in Yorkshire – senior enough to make his own decisions, not senior enough to avoid accusations from above and below when those decisions turn nasty.

And make no mistake, those decisions do turn out nasty, starting with Ford being called to make a mental health assessment of Rosie, a mum struggling following the birth of her second child.

He's being pulled away to section another, more seriously ill patient called Toni, which means his assessment is called into question when he sends Rosie away with instructions to take lorazepam, only for her come back to hospital in a very agitated state.

Things only get worse from there, as Ford's original error – if there was one – magnified at every turn as he tries to get to the bottom of certain inconsistencies around Rosie's care.

The first series of Malpractice focused on a doctor struggling with addiction, and beset by problems caused by the under-staffing and under-funding of the NHS.

This new series moves things on with a new cast, bar the investigators of the Medical Investigation Unit – doctors Norma Callahan (Helen Behan) and George Adjei (Jordan Kouame) – who return to probe Rosie's case.

As they find gaps, errors and obstruction, the tension ratchets up as little mysteries occur and are resolved, each one taking us a step closer to finding out the truth behind Rosie's death.

Meanwhile, bubbling along in the background, are the office politics – many of which would be familiar to anyone who's worked in a large organisation, but some of which some to be peculiar to the health service.

Not least of which is the management side-lining difficult or unglamorous specialities such as psychiatry in favour of the glossy, new baby glow of the maternity unit.

Ford works on the pastorally-named Willow Ward, which conjures up images of sunlight meadows, dappled glens and babbling brooks, but in hospital terms means broken windows and unfixed toilets.

As Kouame says: “There's this weird hierarchy in medicine, like psychiatry's the poor relation or something. You should see the psych unit, it's literally falling apart. We can't keep the patients safe.”

As Malpractice goes on, this determination to protect revenue, to reduce costs comes more and more to the fore, as the management of our health service are shown to be the real villains.

Mind you, no one in Malpractice is thoroughly good, or thoroughly bad. Ford is a good doctor who is pulled in umpteen different directions by the demands of the job and makes errors of judgement, due to inexperience, or over-confidence.

His antagonist, obstetrician Sophia Hernandez (Selin Hizli) – who delivered Rosie's baby – is trying her best but is traumatised by previous experience and not properly supervised.

Meanwhile, there are red herrings, new revelations and more mistakes – all the propulsive elements of a terrific thriller.

The only time the pace drops is when we get a glimpse of the home lives of Callahan and Kouame – new relationships and troublesome children – which takes much of the air out of the drama and leaves you longing to get back to the action.

That minor quibble aside, every episode ups the stakes, ups the tension, ups the pace as everyone involved in Rosie's case eventually comes under suspicion.

Watched from the comfort of your sofa, Malpractice is compulsive viewing. But it may make you think twice before heading off to A&E.