to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. Grace requires surgery for a collapsed lung, and as she recovers, Sam, who has been diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, collapses from septic shock. Both father and daughter go on to make a full recovery. In episode "Only Believe", Connie applies for the new Director of Surgery position, alongside Ric Griffin and Michael Spence (Hari Dhillon). She agrees with Ric to support his application on the understanding he will step down in six months time, and recommend her to assume the role in his place. She also begins a new romance with a man she knows only as "John". 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). When John and Jayne's son, Christian, is rescued from drowning and Connie is asked to operate on him, she realises she cannot break up the family and ends her affair with John. Throughout the show's eleventh season, Connie battles Ric for the Director of Surgery position when he refuses to step down as agreed. When she discovers Michael's anaesthetist wife Annalese Carson (Anna-Louise Plowman) has attended an operation which resulted in the death of a patient drunk, she reports her to Jayne, leading Annalese to leave Holby General. Jayne reveals to Connie that she suspects John is having an affair. Connie warns John, and discovers he is already seeing someone else. Jayne learns the truth then she observes the two of them rowing, and tells Connie that personal matters ought not affect their working relationship. Connie goes on to apply for Director of Surgery, to replace Ric, who is resigning. After the interview the board are seen deciding whom to allocate the job to, and Jayne, who is Holby's CEO, recommends an unofficial tie breaker. Michael Spence gets the job over Connie, due to the fact she allegedly ruined her marriage by having an affair with John. Connie later resigns but Spence blackmails Jayne into resigning, persuading Connie to stay at Holby. Connie soon clashed with Jayne's replacement, Vanessa Lytton (Leslie Ash), an old friend of Michael's. Vanessa warned Michael that she believed Connie was after his job as Director of Surgery. When Faye Morton's (Patsy Kensit) son Archie died in suspicious circumstances, Joseph pleads with both Connie and Ric to lie to Vanessa,