Rachel Clarke

Dr Rachel Clarke is an NHS palliative care doctor and award-winning writer whose work explores compassion, humanity and what truly matters in healthcare. Author of four Sunday Times bestsellers, including The Story of a Heart, she won the 2025 Women's Prize for Non-Fiction and has been shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award and Baillie Gifford Prize. A former Channel 4 journalist who retrained as a doctor at 29, Rachel combines frontline clinical experience with powerful storytelling to help audiences understand end-of-life care, NHS challenges and the transformative power of empathy in building stronger, more compassionate organisations and communities.

At 29, Rachel Clarke walked away from a career producing hard-hitting current affairs documentaries for Channel 4 to begin a medical degree, qualifying as a doctor in 2009 and embarking on a journey that would transform her understanding of what truly matters in healthcare. That decision, born from a desire to make a more direct difference in people's lives, has shaped a remarkable career at the intersection of frontline palliative care and powerful storytelling. Today, she works as an NHS palliative care doctor whilst writing books that have reached millions, with her most recent work, The Story of a Heart, earning her the 2025 Women's Prize for Non-Fiction and becoming her fourth Sunday Times bestseller.

Rachel's earlier books have established her as one of the most trusted voices on NHS realities and end-of-life care. Your Life in My Hands documented the pressures facing junior doctors on the frontline, whilst Breathtaking offered an unflinching account of working on COVID-19 wards during the pandemic's first wave. Dear Life, shortlisted for the 2020 Costa Biography Award and longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize, draws on her hospice work to explore love, loss and what gives life meaning when time is running out. The Costa judges praised it as "a beautifully written, powerfully moving book that tackles an emotive and difficult subject with professional compassion and personal insight." Her journalism background, which saw her cover conflict zones and global crises, gives her writing an urgency and clarity that makes complex medical and ethical issues accessible to wide audiences. She contributes regularly to publications including the Guardian, New York Times and Lancet, and appears frequently on BBC Question Time, Newsnight, Radio 4 Today and other major platforms where she advocates passionately for the NHS and her patients.

Rachel helps audiences understand the human side of healthcare, leadership and organisational culture through stories that build empathy and inspire meaningful change. Her talks move beyond clinical detail to explore universal themes of compassion, resilience and what it means to care for others during their most vulnerable moments. Organisations gain practical insights into fostering cultures of kindness, supporting teams through crisis, and making decisions that honour human dignity. Audiences leave with a renewed sense of purpose, equipped to bring greater humanity into their own work and communities, and a deeper appreciation for the power of listening, presence and authentic connection in creating lasting impact.