Under his tenure as executive producer, attempts were made at modernising the programme and appealing to a younger audience by taking on the filmizing technique and introducing musical montage segments into each episode.

Under his tenure as executive producer, attempts were made at modernising the programme and appealing to a younger audience by taking on the filmising technique and introducing musical montage segments into each episode.

[9] In October 2007, BBC cutbacks led The Daily Telegraph to report that the Elstree site would be sold, and Holby City relocated to share a set with Casualty, possibly in Cardiff.

[51] The following year, registrar Diane Lloyd (Patricia Potter) followed consultant Ric Griffin (Hugh Quarshie) to Ghana as part of the BBC's "Africa lives" series, a week of programmes bringing an exploration of African culture to UK audiences.

[52][53] In 2006, an episode shot in Switzerland featured consultant Elliot Hope's (Paul Bradley) wife Gina (Gillian Bevan) committing assisted suicide after her motor neurone disease worsened.

[32] However, on 10 December 2012, it was announced that the show had filmed one episode in Stockholm, which focusses on Jac tracking down hospital CEO Henrik Hanssen (Guy Henry) and exploring his backstory.

[82] Quarshie, Joe McFadden (Raf di Lucca), Davood Ghadami (Eli Ebrahimi) and Luisa Bradshaw-White (Lisa Fox) were among the cast who expressed their sadness with the show's cancellation.

[14] The original cast of 11 characters featured in the show's first episode consisted of consultants Anton Meyer (George Irving) and Muriel McKendrick (Phyllis Logan), registrars Nick Jordan (Michael French) and Kirstie Collins (Dawn McDaniel), senior house officer Victoria Merrick (Lisa Faulkner), ward sister Karen Newburn (Sarah Preston), theatre sister Ellie Sharpe (Julie Saunders), senior staff nurse Ray Sykes (Ian Curtis), staff nurses Julie Bradford (Nicola Stephenson) and Jasmine Hopkins (Angela Griffin), and ward clerk Paul Ripley (Luke Mably).

[95] Following the show's production break, three new characters were introduced: Josh Hudson (Trieve Blackwood-Cambridge), Jeong-Soo Han (Chan Woo Lim), and Lucky Simpson (Vineeta Rishi).

[97] Three regular characters were introduced in the show's final series: Eli Ebrahimi (Davood Ghadami),[98] Madge Britton (Clare Burt),[99] and Russell "Russ" Faber (Simon Slater).

[102] When Jane Asher was cast in the recurring role of Lady Byrne in 2007, Inside Soap magazine asked Kyle whether the production team intentionally sought out "well-known-names".

[19] Other notable guest stars include Paul Blackthorne,[108] Suzanne Shaw,[109] Geoffrey Hutchings,[110] Richard Todd,[111] Johnny Briggs,[112] Terence Rigby,[113] Michael Obiora,[114] and Lionel Jeffries.

[citation needed] The BBC's William Gallagher wrote in a November 2001 column that Soul's guest-appearance had begun a trend for American actors appearing in UK shows.

An interactive episode of Casualty@Holby City was one of the headlining shows of the season, allowing viewers to vote by phone to determine the outcome of a fictional organ donation.

In September 2010, Holby City's nurse Donna Jackson (Jaye Jacobs) appeared in Casualty, and Kent hopes that characters from the two shows will begin to crossover two or three times a year.

[132] Jordan contemplated that "soap snobs" may hold the series in disdain for using the Holby brand, but concluded: "After much thought, I remembered who I was as a writer, the joy I take from surprising an audience, by subverting expectation – and HolbyBlue was born.

[151] Kevin Lygo, director of television at Channel 4, referred to Holby City as "sudsy drama", deeming it, Casualty and HolbyBlue "all decent programmes, but strikingly similar in many aspects of their tone and construction.

"[153] In October 2009, former Holby City writer Peter Jukes wrote a critical piece for Prospect magazine, contrasting the show negatively with the standard of American television dramas.

"[159] At the 2003 Edinburgh International Television Festival, BSkyB chief executive Tony Ball called for stricter restrictions on how the BBC spent licence payers' money, suggesting that Holby City be sold to the channel's commercial rivals, with the proceeds used to develop more original programming.

She felt that media portrayal had amplified these misconceived views, observing that with "the syringe-toting serial killer Kelly in Holby City, realism has never been top of TV's agenda."

[170] Tom Sutcliffe of The Independent reviewed a December 2009 episode poorly, finding it "astonishing" that any patients leave Holby General alive, as the staff are "so busy looking stricken or lovelorn at each other".

[171] In December 2003, Libby Purves wrote a critical opinion piece in The Times, observing that Holby City's medical staff are often depicted getting drunk in clubs, but afterwards are able to function properly at work, and that as a result, alcohol "is made to look innocent".

[172] In October 2004, Canon Kenyon Wright, chair of Alcohol Focus Scotland, criticised an episode of Holby City which saw doctors downing tequila slammers, stating that it glamorised irresponsible drinking.

The body's chief executive David Poley claimed that in failing to show the negative consequences of this action, the series was presenting a "highly irresponsible portrayal of excessive and rapid drinking".

Dr Michael Wilks, chairman of the Medical Ethics Committee stated: "This simply would not happen, but its portrayal, even in a drama, is totally irresponsible and risks causing huge damage to the already struggling transplant programme.

"[177] In a follow-up story for The Times, Vivienne Parry highlighted the fact that in reality, less than half of patients who require resuscitation survive the initial catastrophe and only a third of those live to leave hospital.

[178] At the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) conference in Bournemouth in April 2010, Holby City was accused of fostering unrealistic expectations of the NHS, encouraging patients to believe in miracles and fuelling compensation culture.

"[179][180] In October 2000, Dr John Ryan, an Accident & Emergency consultant at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton criticised the number of patients visiting the department for minor ailments without first contacting their GP.

[181] A three-year Belgian research project, presented at a British Psychological Society meeting in September 2008, claimed that watching Holby City and similar medical dramas such as Casualty and ER had a subliminal influence on fear of illness.

Alongside "Top Gear man", "Apprentice generation" and "Grand Designs couple", they identified "Holby City worker", a middle-ranking health service employee.