The waiting room is silent, save for the hum of fluorescent lights and the distant wail of an ambulance. That’s the vibe of Malpractice’s second season, which stormed onto ITV on May 4, 2025, with a premiere that’s got viewers clutching their armrests. This medical drama, penned by former NHS doctor Grace Ofori-Attah, isn’t here to hold your hand—it’s here to drag you through the chaos of a hospital ward where every choice could be a matter of life and death.
Season two picks up with a fresh case, centered on Dr. James Ford, played with raw intensity by Tom Hughes. Ford’s a psychiatrist navigating a minefield of impossible decisions: a woman battling postpartum psychosis, a pregnant addict facing sectioning, and a system stretched so thin it’s practically fraying at the seams. The first episode, aired on ITV1 and streamed on ITVX, throws you into a tragedy that unfolds with the slow dread of a car crash you can’t look away from. By the end, someone’s dead, and the question isn’t just who’s to blame but how the hell anyone survives a job like this.
The show’s creator, Ofori-Attah, knows this world inside out—she spent years in the NHS trenches before swapping scrubs for a script. Her fingerprints are all over the series’ unflinching realism. Scenes crackle with the kind of pressure that makes you wonder how doctors don’t just snap. The cast, including Hannah McClean as nurse Rosie, delivers performances that feel less like acting and more like eavesdropping on real people unraveling. New faces join returning players like Norma and George, who are back to investigate the fallout, their every move dogged by the specter of institutional failure.
Filmed in gritty, lived-in hospitals that look like they’ve seen better days, the show doesn’t glamorize medicine. It’s all fluorescent glare and chipped linoleum, with dialogue that’s sharp and messy, like real people talking under duress. The season, five episodes long, is streaming in full on ITVX, but ITV’s airing it weekly, each installment a fresh gut punch. The premiere drew a crowd, with official figures from ITV pegging viewership in the millions, though exact numbers are still trickling in.
What sets Malpractice apart isn’t just the stakes—it’s the way it forces you to wrestle with the human cost of a broken system. No one’s a saint here, but no one’s a cartoon villain either. The show’s been greenlit for a third season, announced by ITV on April 16, a nod to its grip on audiences who can’t seem to get enough of this nerve-shredding ride.
The second season of Malpractice premiered on ITV1 on May 4, 2025, at 9 p.m. All five episodes are available on ITVX. The series is produced by World Productions, with Grace Ofori-Attah as creator and lead writer. ITV confirmed a third season on April 16, 2025.