On Connie's first day back, after looking after her father, Hanssen tells her that not all on Darwin are pulling their weight indicating Elliott. Connie decides not to tell Elliott and he continues to make slip ups in front of Hanssen unknown that he is being watched until it all comes to a head when a patient learns her daughter died in an accident and Elliott had concealed the truth from her in order to get the mother into surgery. Elsewhere, Jac trying to show that she is a worthy consultant in front of Hanssen messes up big time when she goes ahead with colon surgery to remove a blockage after Hanssen tells her to stop. Meanwhile, Frieda impresses Michael when she is asked to work day shift by Penny.

Eager to please Michael in his bid for Director of Surgery at St. Stephen's Sheena Clore sneaks her way into Hanssen's office to get information off his laptop but Hanssen catches her via his web-cam and suspends her. She is further devastated when Michael fails to take some of the blame. Meanwhile, Sami, a young foreign national is brought in by border patrol but Elliott refuses to do the surgery he needs done as he is not covered in the UK. His mother decides to leave him thinking he will get the treatment he needs with her gone but when Oliver and Elliott re-read the scans they find that Sami has very little time and dies shattering Oliver and which underlines his own unprofessionalism. Elsewhere, Donna and the rest of the nurses take a hard line with the agency nurses, including new male nurse, Kieran Callaghan, and brings her concerns to Hanssen and the Board. Penny had a hard time trying to cover for Michael and getting him to write her AEU rotation report.

New locum consultant Keira Balfour manages to ruffle Jac's feathers on Keller and she takes her eye off the ball and messes up in surgery. She later falsifies the patients record to take the blame off her and put it on Chrissie. Mark later tells her she can interview for the permanent locum consultant and after a balsy interview with Mark and Hansen she is offered the job but Michael warns her of her rash decision in applying for the job. Meanwhile, Faye's stability on the ward is questioned and later at her baby shower she throws a wobbly and then becomes violent towards a patient forcing Joseph to have her committed to a baby and mother psych facility. Elsewhere, Donna's colleagues give her a taste of her own medicine.

Chrissie returns to Holby much to Sacha's delight but it doesn't turn out quite what he expected when Chrissie responds to Greg's charm. Ric's daughter Jess also makes a return and is newly engaged but is unaware of how serious Ric's condition is and they come to blows before he finally realises that he needs to take some time off to deal with his treatment. Meanwhile, Faye becomes increasingly unstable and puts herself and the baby at risk during a measles outbreak.

Henrik Hanssen has until the end of the day to make cuts as requested by the Department of Health and he decides that a consultant post will make the necessary cut he needs and decides on Ric. But Connie is far from happy with this scenario and asks that she tell Ric instead of Henrik. But then she decides to cut 8 nurses instead to make the savings and keep Ric on but this decision goes down badly with Elliott. Meanwhile, Michael neglects his post on AAU and focuses his time in Holby Care much to the annoyance of Hanssen.

Connie finds out from Terence and Mark that they have replaced Michael with Henrik Hanssen as the new Joint Director of Surgery. Connie clashes with him almost immediately. Elsewhere, Joseph begins to have the same doubts about Faye that Linden did. Meanwhile, Penny begins to stress out after being on call constantly. Hanssen meets with the staff and tells them there will be job cuts and appoints Michael as new consultant of AAU to replace Linden.