Connie Beauchamp

Constance "Connie" Beauchamp (née Chase)  MBBS, FRCS, FETCS,  is a consultant in emergency medicine, former cardiothoracic surgeon and the current Clinical Lead at Holby City Emergency Department. She arrived at the ED as Deputy Clinical Lead in March 2014 and assumed the role of Clinical Lead after Zoe Hanna stepped down in June 2014. She worked in the Darwin Ward of the hospital for over six years as the Clinical Lead of cardiothoracic surgery before her departure in December 2010. Over three years later in March 2014, she returned to the hospital's Emergency Department, having retrained as a consultant in emergency medicine.

Upon her abrupt arrival in the ED, she was disliked by some of the staff as a result of her attitude towards them. In the year following her arrival, tension arose between Connie and Clinical Nurse Manager Rita Freeman due to the fact she gave many of the undesirable jobs to the nurses. She has one daughter with Sam Strachan, Grace, born in 2005.

Throughout her time in the ED, Connie has, as well as being promoted to Clinical Lead, implemented a number of new policies which in her eyes would lead to a more efficient work environment. Since joining the team, Connie has seen the arrival of several new staff members including Jacob Masters, Jack Diamond and Alicia Munroe, and the departure of Martin Ashford as well as the death of paramedic Jeff Collier. In the long run, Connie is out for her own career but is ultimately focused on creating a smooth running, efficient emergency department following the death of her father in a crowded one.

Early life
Connie was raised in Peckham, South London where her mother was a nurse and her father a teacher. She later revealed this to Jacob, and he acted surprised that she wasn't from somewhere nicer. Her mother died in 1995, and after that she was estranged from her father for a period of 12 years and reunited when Connie revealed that she had given birth to his granddaughter. He died at some point after in a crowded ED, which acted as inspiration for Connie to make Holby ED as efficient as she could.

Connie Beauchamp joined Holby City General Hospital in June 2004, and remained at the hospital until she left in December 2010. Connie's job at Holby City Hospital was that of consultant cardiothoracic surgeon on the hospital's Darwin Ward. She later became Clinical Lead in 2006, and held the position until her departure. During her time in the ED, her husband arrived only for them to split up, she then fell pregnant with another man, Sam, soon after they divorced.

In December 2010, her father was rushed to Holby in need of an operation, and she learned that he was suffering from Alzheimer's. During the operation her father nearly died, which lead to Connie deciding that she could no longer work there and subsequently handed in her resignation. Following her departure, she went to Switzerland to carry out research, however it's unknown as to what this entailed. When Zoe asked Guy why she returned prior to starting at the ED, he said that Connie told him that Holby was where her heart belonged. He also told her that Connie had carried out all of the necessary training in emergency medicine and was now a fully qualified consultant.

Time in the Emergency Department (2014-)
In March 2014, Zoe had expressed concern to Guy Self regarding the lack of staff in the ED, so he sad that he would organise for the arrival of another consultant to assist her. Guy had selected Connie for the role following her return to Holby, and she started at the ED on 29 March 2014 as Deputy Clinical Lead. He told Zoe when she asked that Connie was in his office by pure coincidence at the time a consultant was needed. She began her first shift immediately, without even consulting the Clinical Lead at the time, Zoe Hanna. On her first day, she also went out to the scene of an accident and put herself in danger by climbing up some unsteady support beams to reach an injured man on the metal supports above the stage. She came across to the other staff as being rude and bossy, which caused them to take a dislike to her.

The following week, Zoe was startled when she heard Louise's voice come over a new tannoy that Connie had installed in the department. When Zoe confronted her about it, Connie said that she had agreed it with the senior nursing staff and Tess agreed that it would save time. Later in the day, Tess informed Connie that the way she decided to treat one of the patients wasn't their usual protocol but Connie continued nonetheless. Zoe later spoke to her and overrode her plan of action to Connie's embarrassment. However, Zoe was later left annoyed when Connie revealed that she had been out for dinner with Guy Self the night before and discussed the ED with him.

In May 2014, she raised concerns to Ash after a man who was admitted to the ED died, questioning Zoe's choices. Soon after, Ash and Zoe realised that Connie had been playing them off against one another. The following month, Connie decided to go to the hospital's CEO Guy Self to question Zoe's competence as Clinical Lead. Although he initially dismissed the claims, Zoe later left the ED in order to help at the scene of an accident, which left the department with no leadership. Connie had a favourable relationship with Zoe prior to this in comparison to other staff, partially due to the fact that she was Clinical Lead upon Connie's arrival, not because she thought any higher of her. After Zoe disobeyed her instructions to stay in the ED, she resigned as Clinical Lead as she felt saving lives was more important than the responsibility. After Zoe announced this, Guy asked Connie if she would like to be Clinical Lead, to which she said she did. Guy then suggested that Connie fire Zoe, but Connie strongly objected saying that Zoe was one of the best consultants she has ever worked with.

In July, Connie's old boss Andrea visited the ED whilst in Holby. However, she started to take control of the ED and question Connie's decisions in front of her team, much to her annoyance. Andrea returned once again in September and insisted that a young boy needed an operation, but really she was doing it for her own sake as a result of her own illness. Also in September, Connie organised a meeting with Tess, Robyn and Lofty in regards to a joke which Robyn had put on a patient's allergy forms. Connie was furious, as the notes had followed the patient up to the wards and into surgery, and Tess explained to them that what they had written could have been mistaken for something else and been life threatening. Charlie interrupted midway through, and Connie went on to tell Robyn and Lofty that they both seemed to treat work as some kind of joke and that she wouldn't stand for it in her ED.

In October, Connie was involved in a minibus crash whilst travelling to a nearby failing hospital, St Stephens, with various other members of staff. Connie escaped with only minor injuries and was able to call for an ambulance. However, back at the ED Charlie prevented her from performing a procedure on a badly wounded Ethan due to her wrist injury. It was revealed to the rest of the team that Jeff had been killed in an explosion that followed at the scene of the accident. The following week at the funeral, Connie realised she had three missed calls from Grace's boarding school in Dorset. Worried that Grace was involved in an accident, she phoned them back but they told her that Grace had been expelled, forcing Connie to drive to Dorset to get her. Later in the month, Connie had a complaint lodged against her by Hailey Blake, the daughter of a patient who died in the ED whilst under Connie's care. Hailey argued that her father shouldn't have been discharged in his state and that Connie had missed something during his examination. Despite trying to reason with her, it seemed to only make things worse for Connie as Hailey grew more angry.

Whilst caught up in the stress of the court case, Connie had few options and had to bring Grace to work with her. Connie hadn't planned on the scenario ever coming about as Grace was enrolled in boarding school. However, in the following months their relationship strained as Connie continued to put patients before her. Connie was left to question whether she could concentrate on her daughter and her career. Soon after, Grace's grandmother Audrey suggested that Grace would be better off living with her father in New York, but Connie didn't want to lose Grace.

In January 2015, it eventually transpired that Hailey's step mother was abusing her father, and that was causing his injuries to worsen. After a lengthy ordeal for both Connie and Hailey, they had a conversation outside the ED in and she decided not to take the case any further to Connie's relief. The following week, Rita's sex offender ex-husband Mark visited the ED having been released from prison. Coincidentally, Grace went missing around the same time whilst at work with Connie which led Connie to believe that Mark had abducted her. Ultimately, it became clear that Mark hadn't taken her, but Connie channelled her anger on Rita anyway, telling her that she wanted her out of the department within six months. Soon after, Connie finally let go of Grace and allowed her to go and live with her father in New York as Audrey had suggested. Although she was distraught at losing her daughter, she saw this as an opportunity to focus on her work more. As a result of the events, she asked Cal Knight for his letter of resignation following a bad inspection, however Charlie managed to persuade her not to.

At the end of February 2015, Alfred Maxwell was admitted to the ED, and elderly patient suffering form motor neuron disease. After a while, he frequently asked Connie to help him die. This caused Connie's stress to peak and in March, she started to enforce new rules and regulations that the staff were ordered abide by. Some of these things were unpleasant, especially for the nursing staff and the porters. After she started to demand too much of the doctors by making them work longer shifts, Lily hit someone with her motorcycle while driving as she couldn't concentrate due to a lack of sleep. After this incident, Connie decided to cut the staff some slack after Charlie and Rita both spoke to her separately.

Continuing her visits to Alfred, she visited him one evening in April and took 2 boxes of benzodiazepines with her, and gave him a theraputic dose of two tablets. The next day, Alfred died in the ED, and a suspicious Rita requested a toxicology report on his body. Upon seeing that he had received an overdose of benzodiazepines, she checked and saw that two boxes were missing from storage. She jumped to the conclusion that Connie had assisted Alfred's suicide and called the police. After her arrest, they brought Connie in for questioning. During this, Connie told the police that in her top drawer they would find the two boxes with 2 tablets missing from one box as proof that she didn't give him an overdose. However, when the police arrived at the ED, Rita overheard them telling reception where they want to search, so she went to Connie's office first. To her surprise, there were only 2 tablets missing, therefore proving Connie's innocence. Rita took the boxes and hid them from the police but later gave them to Charlie and apologized. Charlie took the evidence to the police, and Connie was set free. Despite this, she was still suspended from work for a couple of weeks, leaving Dylan as acting Clinical Lead.

In May 2015, Connie went with Charlie to Bucharest in search of his son, Louis who they'd been told was in trouble. They met a Romanian doctor named Alex who was caring for Louis in hospital. After finding out he was going for kidney harvesting because he owed money to a drug dealer, Connie and Charlie located the hospital where the operation was due to take place with the help of Sofia, Louis' girlfriend. They arrived just in time before the kidney was going to be removed, to find that Alex was one of the doctors performing the operation. Connie had to attempt to save Louis after one of his internal veins was accidentally cut by Alex when Charlie pushed him out of rage. She then distracted the drug dealer, Christian when he arrived with the help of Sofia and Alex. Connie also learnt from Charlie that it was Rita who set her up the previous month regarding the police. In early June 2015, Connie returned to the ED after her false suspension, replacing Dylan from his role as temporary Clinical Lead.

In August 2015 she took Jacob Masters' new gun violence protocol into account, and viewed it as being a possible benefit to the ED. After Rita declined the need for such a thing, Connie got directly involved, and they both soon realised that he was manipulating them. Later in the month after Zoe and Max's wedding, Charlie experienced a heart attack which brought him to the ED as a patient. Due to his cardiogram showing little signs of life, Rita tried to persuade Connie to stop attempting to resuscitate him, but Connie refused to stop, and she eventually managed to stabilize him again. In September during an extremist takeover of the ED, Connie and Jacob got caught up in the middle of it and were being held at gun point with Big Mac in the boardroom. However, Jacob was able to get hold of a gun and hold them at gunpoint but when the police intervened one of the officers mistook Jacob for one of the attackers and shot him. He was rushed downstairs with Connie and the rest of the team, and Connie was able to save him. In the following weeks, Connie spoke with the superintendent of Holby Police about the incident, and they made it clear to her that they weren't thinking of punishing the officer responsible as it was an accident. After she told Jacob this, he said he wanted to know who the man was, but she said they would never reveal it, but he told her that there were other ways he could find out. In November, he received an envelope containing the name of the police officer who shot him from an unknown source, but he eventually threw it away without opening it after Connie said it would ruin his career.

In November 2015, an incident involving Alicia outside the department left Connie and Lily angry, despite the fact she was doing the right thing. As a result of this - and Lily's bullying - Alicia decided to hand in her resignation notice. The following year in February, Grace phoned Connie from a hotel in Holby to tell her that Sam's girlfriend couldn't get up from her bed due to severe stomach pains, so Connie phoned for an ambulance. Once at the ED, Connie greeted Grace but Grace made it clear that she didn't care about their relationship and only wanted her to treat Emma. They later revealed that they were in the UK for a 3 day conference on cardiothoracics which Sam was attending. Soon after, Sam arrived and stated to Connie that he wanted Emma being treated privately, but her condition was too serious by this stage as they believed she had an internal bleed or enlarged blood vessel in her abdomen. Connie performed the operation with the help of Jac Naylor after Sam found himself unable to do so, and she also gained some respect from Grace.

The following week, Emma was still recovering and Sam told Connie that him and Grace were leaving that night to return to the US due to his work and Grace's school. However, Connie was not very happy about Grace leaving just as they had started to bond. When talking to Jacob during her shift, Connie inadvertently said that she didn't want Grace living with her and unknown to her, Grace was standing behind and overheard. Shortly after, Noel came to get Connie to notify her that Grace was sitting in her office tearing up papers on her desk. Despite being initially angry, Connie soon became concerned and it soon transpired that Grace was having a panic attack. Connie called Sam in for a chat, as Grace had told Connie that her dad was aware that she had suffered from them before. Sam told Connie that she wasn't cut out for mothering Grace as her career always came first and although Connie tried to prevent Grace from leaving, Sam said she was going back with him for her own sake. After her shift and saying goodbye to Grace, Connie and Jacob drove to catch up to Grace who was about to board a connecting flight to her New York flight. They arrived shortly before the plane took off, and Grace rushed out for Connie to tell her that she wouldn't lose her again.

Towards the end of March, Connie treated Kieran Blithe, a prison inmate who had been admitted to the ED after being beaten up. However, the prison officer guarding him set him free, and soon after he kidnapped Connie in an attempt to escape the ED. It soon transpired that he was in a relationship with the guard, who had helped him escape due to the fact her daughter needed expensive surgery and she was being paid to aid his escape. He threatened Connie with a needle infected with HIV, but Connie was able to alert Jacob when she answered her phone whilst they were in the basement and she revealed her situation through conversation with Kieran so Jacob would hear. He came to help, and they eventually were able to get a seriously ill Kieran back upstairs for treatment. However, he died in resus but Connie told the prison officer she wouldn't condemn her in her statement as it was Kieran making the threats.

Personal life
Connie was once married to Michael Beauchamp, but they divorced in 2005 and she kept her married name. After a brief relationship with Sam Strachan shortly after, she gave birth to their daughter, Grace, in 2005. Connie was apprehensive to let Sam have anything to do with the birth, but later became more accepting. Grace took Connie's surname of Beauchamp from her previous marriage to Michael Beauchamp.

In the years she was at Holby General Hospital as a surgeon, her romantic interests included Ric Griffin, Will Curtis, Mubbs Hussein, Sam Strachan, John Grayson, as well as her ex husband, Michael Beauchamp. In May 2015 when she was in Romania in search for Louis Fairhead with his father, she had a fling with a local doctor named Alex. Later in 2015 Jacob Masters' took a liking to Connie and their flirting became noticed by other members of staff.

In December 2015, Connie and Jacob were bought closer together following a shift at the ED, and they ended up sleeping together. She inadvertently revealed this to the rest of the staff during an argument with Jacob the following week when a patient with motor neurone disease was brought in. However, they made up and decided to spend Christmas together. On the night of Jacob's birthday, which Connie did not know about, he failed to turn up at her house only for her to find out that his friends had taken him out for birthday drinks. Feeling guilty that she hadn't got him a present, Connie decided she would spend the night at Jacob's to make it up to him since she had previously refused to spend the night there. By February 2016 despite not being completely open about their relationship, they acknowledged it to those who asked, making it official. Since their relationship began, Jacob has referred to Connie as Sweetcheeks, Pussycat, Babe, Queen Bee, Sexy, and unbeknown to her, Sexy Margaret Thatcher.

Trivia

 * During her time at Holby, she gave birth to a daughter, Grace, whose father was Sam Strachan one of her previous partners.
 * Connie used to be the Clinical Lead for cardiothoracic surgery at Holby City Hospital.
 * She began working at the ED in March 2014.
 * Connie joined Holby City Hospital as a surgeon on 1 June 2004.
 * Connie left Holby City Hospital on 28 December 2010.
 * Connie volunteers at an MND support group.
 * Connie will rarely be seen in the staff room or the pub.
 * She has twice been in legal troubles since joining the ED.
 * Rita attempted to frame her for murder in 2015.

Behind the scenes
Amanda Mealing has played Connie in Casualty since March 2014 and previously portrayed her in Holby City from 2004 to 2010. She at first returned to a regular role in Casualty but as time passed, she became more prominent. She also portrayed Connie in 3 other episodes of Casualty between 2004 and 2007, but not as a permanent role.

Reception
Connie has been subject to many criticisms, mainly since she arrived in Causalty due to the fact she is unrepresentative of what the NHS is really like. During her time in Holby City, Connie has been described as "ruthless" by The Times' Emma Cook, and an "egomaniac" by The Daily Mirror's Clare Raymond and Jim Shelley respectively, but the BBC describes her as "an outstanding surgeon who wields her power just as comfortably in the boardroom as in the bedroom.

Discussing public reception of her character, Mealing states that: "The response has been amazing - from men, women and children. I'm often stopped out shopping or dining etc. and told 'You're so mean to (whoever).. but we love you!' I think there's a little in all of us that would like to say what we really feel, the way Connie does". Mealing has received several award nominations for the role; ranking seventh 'Best Actress' in the 2004 BBC Drama Awards, being nominated 'Best Actress' in the 2005 TV Quick Awards, and 'Best Newcomer' in the 2005 National TV Awards. With her return in Casualty, the Daily Mail's Claudia Connell called Connie out for being unrepresentative of the NHS, "wearing more make-up than the entire cast of TOWIE" and "teetering around saving lives in her tight pencil skirts and towering heels".

On 21 March 2016, William Beck posted a photo on Twitter partially revealing a diagram showing the doctors of series 31. It revealed that Elle will at some point replace Connie as Clinical Lead. Also, Zoe wasn't present on the chart which strongly implies that she will be leaving the show as only Connie and Dylan were seen below Elle.

Appearances

 * See also: Character appearances.

Connie made her first ever appearance in Casualty during the series 19 episode "Casualty@Holby City - Part 1" which aired in 2004. She appeared in two more episodes as a guest character before joining as a series regular in the series 28 episode "Valves to Vagrants" in March 2014.