Connie Beauchamp is a fictional character from the BBC medical dramas Holby City and Casualty, portrayed by actress Amanda Mealing.

Mealing continued her role as Connie until the thirteenth series of Holby City,[3] departing in the 28 December 2010 episode "Snow Queens".

[6] Connie Beauchamp was introduced as a consultant in emergency medicine and Deputy Clinical Lead, in March 2014, over three years since her last appearance in Holby City.

[7] It was announced in early 2019 that Mealing had decided to take a break from the show for her health reasons with Connie departing on screen later on in the year.

[8] In the character's introductory episode, she ends her first day at Holby City Hospital by having sex with new colleague Ric Griffin.

"[9] Connie goes on to begin a flirtation with her Registrar, Will Curtis, although their initial professional relationship is a strained one, with Mealing offering the insight: "being a military boy, he finds it difficult to take orders from a woman so they have a complete headlock.

[10] Mealing's relationship with co-star Noah Huntley was markedly different off-screen, with the actress explaining: "Sometimes it's hard and I have to apologise for relentlessly going on at him.

Mealing explains: "To her horror, Michael tells the hospital board that it was Connie's decision to fake the death certificate and he insists that she step down as medical director!

The first full length crossover episode between the two, styled Casualty@Holby City was broadcast as a 2004 Christmas special, and saw Connie perform a heart transplant with only emergency power and a rudimentary theatre team, trapped inside a burning building after a lorry crashed into the hospital and caused an explosion, which starts a fire.

[15] The show's executive producer Oliver Kent described Connie, following her return, as "a brilliant top-dog" and "demanding but fair".

[16] Kent teased that Connie's arrival would "set the cat among the pigeons", especially with the emergency department's feisty clinical lead Zoe Hanna (Sunetra Sarker) and consultant Martin "Ash" Ashford (Patrick Robinson).

The tension between the pair grows, culminating in the episode "Thicker Than Water" when Connie kisses him at Ric's 50th birthday party, before informing him she just needed to know she could have him, and walking away.

She also finds herself the subject of a lesbian crush, having caught the attention of the midwife she is mentoring, Mickie Hendrie (Kelly Adams).

During series nine, it emerges that, following a brief relationship with her registrar Sam Strachan (Tom Chambers), Connie is pregnant with his child.

In episode "Only Believe", Connie applies for the new Director of Surgery position, alongside Ric Griffin and Michael Spence (Hari Dhillon).

Through a series of clandestine meetings, she falls in love with him, and is shocked to discover he is the husband of her colleague and Holby City CEO Jayne Grayson (Stella Gonet).

Following Lauren Minster's confession that she had given Archie an incorrect dose of potassium, the suspension was lifted but it was revealed that Connie had had enough of Holby and taken up a new position at the Trafalgar Hospital in London.

Connie returned on 9 March 2010, when her old friend and colleague Elliot Hope (Paul Bradley) begged her help as her replacement Toby Geddes abandoned him in a recent hostage situation to treat patients alone.

Connie later becomes joint Director of Surgery with Henrik Hanssen (Guy Henry), and is deeply unhappy about making members of staff redundant as part of The Coalition's NHS spending cuts.

After the anguish of the redundancies and the situation with her father, Connie decides that she can't work at Holby any more, and hands her resignation to Hanssen.

She met Jac's former boyfriend, Jonny Maconie (Michael Thomson) and seemed to have heard about him before and was left shocked when he made his first impression.

In March 2014, Connie returned to Holby City Hospital after being recruited by new CEO Guy Self (John Michie) to work as a consultant in the Emergency Department.

In June 2014, Zoe resigns from her Clinical Lead status after a helicopter crash, and offers the role to Connie, who immediately accepts.

A disastrous inspection soon follows, and she blames Clinical Nurse Manager Rita Freeman for the loss of Grace, promising her that she will be out within 6 months, and Connie throws herself into work.

Connie kept her cancer diagnosis secret from everyone except Ethan Hardy, who at one stage had to perform an emergency embolectomy when an embolus thrown off from the tumour blocked the blood flow to her right arm.

Her continual refusal of treatment and attempts to hide her condition began to negatively impact her work, raising suspicions amongst other staff members.

Eventually, an infection acquired at work led to her collapsing in resus (where Ethan was forced to explain her condition to all the staff members).

[30][31] The storyline which saw Connie's infant daughter Grace injured after falling downstairs was received critically by The Guardian's Sarah Dempster, who summarised: "Four years after she first dazzled viewers with her ability to smirk at current hospital expenditure figures while simultaneously patronising sobbing cardio patients, Connie Beauchamp finds herself beset, suddenly and violently, by actual emotion when her daughter falls down the stairs.

[32] Fellow Guardian journalist Kathryn Flett deemed the storyline "gripping",[33] and commented that "I empathised hugely with Connie",[33] explaining "although she may be tough and cool and careerist, and therefore have her priorities completely gluteus maximus-over-mammary, she's also a Good Woman who Deserves a Break".

"[33] The Daily Mirror's Jim Shelley named Connie his fictional "Egomaniac of the week" during her series ten campaign to become the hospital's Director of Surgery, referring to her response to colleague Elliot Hope's inquiry whether she felt opening up the position up to external candidates was a waste of time: "Of course it is.