Matthew Harris is a young, lowly orderly working in a busy hospital in London who dreams of bigger and better job opportunities for himself. One evening, he witnesses a car accident outside a local pub where the driver of a car is killed after colliding head-on with a lorry. Harris learns that the man, named Simon Hennessey, was a doctor at the hospital where he works and had been applying for a residency at another hospital in Bristol. Harris takes the dead man's mail, fills out a job application, and applies for the job himself under the late doctor's idenitity. After studying medical books and getting "hands on" involvement with other patients at his hospital, Harris applies for the job and is accepted. He quits his orderly job and settles in Bristol where he, as Dr. Simon Hennessey, is assigned to a busy Accident & Emergency (A&E) department.