Rita Freeman is a fictional character from the BBC medical drama Casualty, played by Chloe Howman. She first appears in the twenty-eighth series episode "Once There Was a Way Home – Part One", first broadcast on 10 August 2013. Howman's casting was announced four days before her debut. She attended multiple auditions against other actresses for the role. Rita is introduced as a new staff nurse at Holby City Hospital's emergency department (ED). She is characterised as fun, feisty, blunt and excellent at her job, which means patients are at ease around her. Howman compared the character to a Jack Russell Terrier. Despite being a popular member of staff, Rita struggles to make personal relationships. Rita's first episode features an incident at her flat when her ceiling caves in; Howman liked the introduction and found it dramatic. Throughout her tenure on the show, Rita has been promoted twice: on first instance to senior staff nurse and on second instance to clinical nurse manager.

The twenty-eighth series of Casualty began airing on BBC One on 3 August 2013, one week after the end of the previous series. This series consisted of 48 episodes, the highest episode order since series 24. The series concluded on 23 August 2014.