Will Noble is a consultant in emergency medicine who currently works in the emergency department of Holby City Hospital. He joined the department in 2019 as a locum paediatric registrar.
Biography
Early life
When Will attended university, he became friends with Ethan Hardy. (CAS: Series 33, Episode 29)
Joining the emergency department
In March 2019, Will arrived at the ED as a locum and ingratiated himself with the staff by getting to know them and offering them drinks. In resus, he treated a teenage boy named Toby who had sustained a cut after falling off a stationary train carriage and didn't want his mother Jackie to find out. Will became concerned about his blood not clotting and, upon reviewing his medical records, learned that he had myelodysplastic syndrome. Once Toby's test results came back, Will insisted on bringing his mother in before discussing his diagnosis, but Toby soon figured out that he had developed leukaemia. Toby opened up to his friend Cassie about his illness, and she helped Will convince him to contact Jackie. Jackie soon arrived and tried to take over Toby's treatment, but Toby told her that he was doing it his way and implored her to go home to look after his brothers.
As Will took Toby to the lift so he could attend his chemotherapy session, he promised to visit him once his shift finished. Later, Connie informed him that there was a vacancy for a full-time consultant post, but he declined it. Archie reminded him that he was supposed to keep Toby company during his chemotherapy session, and Will rushed to the wards. Unfortunately, he was too late, and Toby insisted on being left alone. As Will left the department, Archie admonished him for his irresponsibility, prompting him to go to Connie's office and apply for the consultant post. (CAS: Series 33, Episode 29)
In April, on the day of Will's interview for the consultant post, Toby was admitted to the ED with an infected nipple piercing. Will insisted on treating him, but Toby continued to resent him for not visiting him during his chemotherapy session and demanded to be seen by another doctor, prompting Archie to take over. Later, Will asked her about his condition, and Archie told him that Toby's cancer had become terminal. He decided to break the news to him and Jackie, but the latter refused to believe that her son was dying. After Will removed the piercing, Toby told him that he hadn't forgiven him, but Will promised to be there for him. Toby gave him his "rebel list", and Will noticed that one of the things mentioned on it was the school prom. Knowing that he was not well enough to attend, Will secretly organised a surprise party for Toby in the hospital. In a corridor, Jackie passed him and told him that she and Toby were grateful to him. However, when she said that she was going to the vending machine, Will noticed that she was going in the wrong direction. At that moment, Connie called him in the interview, but he told her to wait. Outside, he found Jackie breaking down, and she accused him of encouraging Toby to give up on life, but she immediately apologised. He promised to help him in any way he could and told her that he had planned a surprise for him.
Toby asks Will to help him die. (CAS: Series 33, Episode 32)
In HDC, Will started playing music on his phone and gave Toby a bowtie. After Will thumped the walls, Toby was delighted when his friends from school, including Cassie, burst in wearing their prom attire. Outside the cubicle, Archie apologised to Will for calling him "irresponsible" earlier that day, and he told her that he was sure that Connie would give him another interview if there were no other suitable candidates. After the party, Toby hugged Will and asked him to help him die if his pain became unbearable. (CAS: Series 33, Episode 32)
On 11 May, Connie scheduled a second interview with Will, but she was left furious when he arrived late. Later that day, when she slammed her door in his face, Will jokingly asked if he should "go top [himself]". Unbeknownst to him, Iain, who had attempted suicide in March, was standing nearby, and Will apologised profusely. That afternoon, he received a large envelope from Noel containing a card from Toby. Robyn asked him why he did not tell Connie about him, and he explained that she would have kicked him out of the hospital sooner if she found out that he held a party in a cubicle. By the end of his shift, Connie had found out from Elle about his treatment of Toby, and she offered him another interview for the following day. Delighted, he decided to buy his colleagues drinks at the pub. (CAS: Series 33, Episode 34)
The following week, Will was surprised when Connie apprised him of his promotion. Later that morning, Will learned that Toby was being taken to the ED, and he elected to observe Archie whilst she treated him. It transpired that Toby was suffering from an infection, and Will opted to investigate his symptoms further despite Toby reminding him of his promise to help him die. Archie overheard and urged him to act with Toby's best interests in mind, but he insisted on sticking to protocol.
His test results showed that Toby had internal pulmonary haemorrhaging and signs of sepsis, and Will solemnly told him and Jackie that he was extremely unlikely to recover. Jackie struggled to come to terms with her son's dire situation and enquired about alternative treatments, but Toby was adamant that he wanted no more treatment. However, Will decided to consider Jackie's opinions on his treatment, prompting Archie to confront him; he told her to find another patient to treat. In the relatives' room, he suggested to Jackie that Toby did not want to fight anymore. Nonetheless, she queried him about the possibility of her overruling him.
Will informed Toby that Jackie insisted on him receiving treatment for his infection. Toby, upset, reminded him about their promise, but he maintained that he made no promises. In admin, Archie learned that Will was humouring Jackie's request for treatment and accused him of dodging responsibility for the circumstances of Toby's inevitable death. However, they were soon interrupted by Jackie calling for help. They subsequently found Toby seizing on the floor of his cubicle. Once he was stabilised, Will posited to Jackie that Toby deliberately put himself in harm's way to make his demands clear, and a distraught Jackie finally agreed to end Toby's treatment. After making Toby comfortable, Will insisted to Archie that there were limits to the help that he could provide to Toby, but she stressed the importance of respecting his wishes and disagreed with his belief that he was doing the right thing.
Will confronts Archie and calls her a "narcissist". (CAS: Series 33, Episode 35)
In HDC, as Jackie comforted her son, Will administered Toby more pain relief. Sometime after, Toby passed away, and Will consoled a devastated Jackie. That evening, he contemplated attending Charlie and Duffy's party at The Hope & Anchor, but he decided not to go. Archie greeted and assured him that he helped Toby, but he berated her for believing that only viewing her methods as correct and labelled her as a narcissist. She claimed that he was promoted beyond his capabilities, but he suggested that his being promoted was exactly what she needed to be "taken down a peg or two" despite feeling that it was the last thing he wanted to do, given the day's events. After telling Archie to raise a drink to Toby, he returned to the ED and informed Connie that he did not believe that the consultant's job was for him. She sympathised with him, but she insisted that he needed the job to help him find out how good a doctor he actually was. Reinvigorated, he decided to keep the promotion. (CAS: Series 33, Episode 35)
Connie's scapegoating
On 29 June, Connie asked Will to monitor Archie in resus, claiming that she had been losing concentration. Despite her objections, he decided to lead a lateral canthotomy, but he was irked when she started guiding him through the procedure. In admin, she confronted him for performing a procedure that he had evidently never done before, and he accused her of undermining him, triggering an argument. Connie attempted to mediate, but, when Archie claimed that she was not the one "making mistakes", she took Will's side and decided to audit her notes until she felt that she was competent. Later that day, Will instructed Archie to fetch Connie to help him treat a man with a key in his neck, but she retrieved troubleshooter Ciaran Coulson instead. Will took issue with her actions, but she maintained that Connie was unfit to practise. He posited that, since she had not reported Connie's alleged error, it was more likely that she made the mistake and refused to admit it. (CAS: Series 33, Episode 41)
Following Duffy's resignation, Will maintained that Archie's feud with Connie had nothing to do with him. However, after he accidentally nicked a blood vessel in Fiona Nyeman's hand, Ciaran instructed him to apologise to her in order to bait Connie. Later that day, as Connie was self-medicating, Will entered her office to give her a report on revised admissions protocols and noticed the drugs. He told Archie what he saw, but he insisted on not being involved in her and Ciaran's crusade against Connie. (CAS: Series 33, Episode 45)
On 27 July, it was announced that there would be an inquiry into benzodiazepines being overprescribed in the department. Whilst Will was ordering food from the food wagon, Archie asserted that Connie was dangerous and asked Will when he would realise that she was unfit to practise. The following day, after Connie framed Ciaran as the culprit, Will ridiculed Archie's plan to publicly expose her, but she urged him to consider what she had done to the patients and Duffy, and back her up. He suggested speaking to Connie first and getting her side of the story; she asked him if he would support her if she was not happy, but he did not answer.
"You're so strong. Do you hear me? You're so strong." (CAS: Series 33, Episode 46)
Later that day, after Archie was rushed in resus after sustaining a stab wound in Connie's company, Will burst in and demanded to know what she did to her; Connie claimed that she was stabbed whilst saving another person from attack and ordered him to get out. Once Archie returned from theatre and was taken to ITU, Will informed Connie that there was a chance that she would not survive and demanded to know what happened. After Connie left, a distraught Will sat by Archie's bedside and blamed himself for not supporting her, asserting that she was "much braver than [he would] ever be". (CAS: Series 33, Episode 46)
Behind the scenes
Jack Nolan made his first appearance as Will Noble in March 2019.
Appearances
- See also: Character appearances and Category:Will centric
Will first appeared in the 29th episode of the 33rd series.
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