When Nurse Kitty becomes the NHS's poster-girl for its overseas recruitment drive, she swaps the grey post-war backstreets of Manchester for the palm-fringed island of Barbados. But will her determination to save the NHS lose her everyone she loves?

It's 1949 and nurse Kitty Longthorne is still hard at work at Manchester's Park Hospital. The one-year-old NHS is inundated by the nation's sick and dying, made worse by a crippling labour shortage.

Now engaged, Kitty and James adore each other, but once they marry, she will be expected to leave the job that means so much to her. When she is offered the trip of a lifetime - a voyage by sea to Barbados to recruit nurses to join Park Hospital's ranks - adventurous Kitty is desperate to go. Her brother Ned has been there for years, and she simply cannot resist an opportunity to track him down and see what exactly he's been up to.

But what of her beloved James? What of the baby she suspects she may be carrying?

Returning home, Kitty has more to contend with than she ever anticipated: a gravely ill father, a dejected fiancé and the close-minded views of her peers upon the arrival of Kitty's first, hardworking recruit - Nurse Grace. After paradise, will Manchester ever be the same again?