A busy doctors surgery in a small West Country town witnesses many close relationships and rivalries, human problems and frailties - among the doctors as well as their patients. Doctor Simon Gatward is popular with staff and patients alike: sympathetic and compassionate, he always makes time to listen to personal problems as well as physical ones. But Simon himself has a tragedy in his past that casts a shadow over his life. And when he takes over responsibility for a new patient - a young man who has come home to die - it s a past that comes back to haunt him.