Rachel Clarke is a current NHS doctor and former television journalist who cares passionately about standing up for her patients and the NHS. She works in palliative medicine, believing that helping patients at the end of life experience the best quality life possible is priceless.
Print journalism
As well as writing extensively about the junior doctor dispute and health politics more broadly for the Guardian, Independent, Telegraph, Huffington Post and BMJ, she has appeared on BBC Newsnight, Channel 4 News, BBC1, ITV, Sky, and give radio interviews to BBC Radio 4’s Today and PM programmes, Radio 1 and Radio 5 Live among others.
In 2016, she received the UK Medical Journalists’ Association award for blogger of the year.
Her first book, Your Life in My Hands, due out on 13.07.17, seeks to capture the truth about life on today’s NHS frontline.
Broadcast journalism
Throughout the junior doctors’ dispute, she gave many television interviews for BBC1, BBC2 Newsnight, Channel 4 News, ITV and Sky, plus radio interviews for BBC Radio 4’s Today and PM programmes among others.
Sample television interviews:
BBC News 07.02.16 (press coverage of this interview, described as “stunningly eloquent”, here: Independent, Digital Spy, Huffington Post; shared online 270k times)
Channel 4 News, 18.05.16 (press coverage of this interview here: Independent)
Channel 4 News, September 2015 (shared online 339k times)
The #TimetoTalkJeremy protest:
In April 2016, I began a 24/7 peaceful protest outside the Department of Health, to try and persuade Jeremy Hunt to re-enter talks before junior doctors’ all out strike. This one minute film shows its launch as I entered DoH to ask to speak to the Health Secretary.
Press coverage of the protest in the Independent can be found here.
doctoroxford.com 
Dear Rachel Clarke,
I’ve just read your book. Thank goodness for you and your courage and ability to state the truth but in such a well balanced and rational way. Thank you for telling the truth as it really is and please don’t stop . There are many of us silently fuming and feeling helpless rage at the lies being spun to us when we know the reality.
As the father of a junior doctor and the son of a mother who when, terminally ill with cancer in 2016, was forced to sit with her for so many hours on a excruciatingly painful trolley in a hospital A&E dept alongside countless others , each with their attending ambulance crews as no beds were available and none could be processed, until eventually in the early hours of the morning she was housed in a converted space on one of the floors on a temporary bed and then subsequently kicked out again later that morning (after I had left and couldn’t complain) and returned to an empty and freezing home due to no beds. Needless to say my letter of complaint to Jeremy Hunt went unacknowledged and to the local Trust received only a completely fudged reply (but at least a reply!)
Finally thanks to the persistence of a wonderful GP, and our family, a place in a hospice was found and she died surrounded by love and in comfort and fully cared for by staff devoted to her and with the time and ability to do so.
Your book moved me in every possible way imaginable and I thank you again for this.
Sincerely
John Elliott
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A fantastic book – so important in the fight to bring the politicians to attention! I am currently finishing my Masters while recovering from a liver transplant. What I loved about your book was its visceral honesty about the conditions you and other doctors experienced, and although it might be classed as some as a memoir I think it is also a good example of a campaign book.
As someone who Is writing my own campaign book about organ donation, I am researching the impact of such work to contribute to my Masters’ module in research and development.
The question I am writing an essay response to is –
Do #campaign books effectively #raiseawareness and help to change people’s opinions?
I must formulate my answer using primary resources and evidence and wondered as an author if you could take the time to give me your views?
It would mean a great deal to me have a response for an author has had such success with such a powerful book.
Thanks in advance for anything you could give me.
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What I loved about your book was its visceral honesty about the conditions you and other doctors experienced, and although it might be classed as some as a memoir I think it is also a good example of a campaign book.
As someone who Is writing my own campaign book about organ donation, I am researching the impact of such work to contribute to my Masters module in research and development.
The question I am writing an essay response to is –
Do #campaign books effectively #raiseawareness and help to change people’s opinions?
I must formulate my answer using primary resources and evidence and wondered as an author if you could take the time to give me your views?
It would mean a great deal to me have a response for an author has had such success with such a powerful book.
Thanks in advance for anything you could give me.
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Dear Rachel,
I’m currently reading your book and really enjoying it immensely, even if it is making my BP go up a bit!I run a thriving school Medical Society with other a hundred prospective doctors and I would love it if you were able to speak to then about life in the NHS. We have a wide outreach net and could attract an audience from all over Shropshire where we are currently battling to save A&E service locally. I’m sure that many would listen to you and then want to read the book too! Please do get in touch if you’d be interested to come up to Shrewsbury.
Kind Regards
Barry Brown
Head of Science
Concord College
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