Dr Rachel Clarke
@drrachelclarke.com
Palliative care doctor 👩🏻⚕ Author 📚 Winner: 2025 Women's Prize for Non-Fiction 🫀 Founder: Hospice Ukraine 🇺🇦 Rep: Clare Alexander at Aitken Alexander 📝
www.drrachelclarke.com
www.drrachelclarke.com
Pinned
Dr Rachel Clarke
@drrachelclarke.com
· Jun 13
This is a dream come true, a once in a lifetime honour. I am so utterly thrilled to have won the 2025 @womensprize.bsky.social for Non-Fiction.
Heartfelt thanks to everyone who gave me such generous support in writing The Story of a Heart, especially Max & Keira’s incredible, wonderful families 🩷🫁🫀
Heartfelt thanks to everyone who gave me such generous support in writing The Story of a Heart, especially Max & Keira’s incredible, wonderful families 🩷🫁🫀
Reposted by Dr Rachel Clarke
The reaction to the Panorama edit has been nothing short of hysterical. Yes the BBC has some impartiality problems. But its biggest isn't the one you think.
New piece from me.
open.substack.com/pub/goodalla...
New piece from me.
open.substack.com/pub/goodalla...
The truth about impartiality at the BBC
And the hysteria of the current "crisis"
open.substack.com
November 10, 2025 at 7:22 PM
The reaction to the Panorama edit has been nothing short of hysterical. Yes the BBC has some impartiality problems. But its biggest isn't the one you think.
New piece from me.
open.substack.com/pub/goodalla...
New piece from me.
open.substack.com/pub/goodalla...
"We would never tolerate a government that chose to defund 70% of neonatal services, gambling that charities would fill the gap. Yet this is exactly the situation for end-of-life care."
Please read my piece on the travesty of NHS palliative care underfunding 🙏
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Please read my piece on the travesty of NHS palliative care underfunding 🙏
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
As a palliative care specialist, I’ve witnessed the human tragedy of our end-of-life care crisis | Rachel Clarke
While the government debates assisted dying, palliative care is an afterthought. And many more people face death without the care and support they need, says Rachel Clarke
www.theguardian.com
November 10, 2025 at 7:07 PM
"We would never tolerate a government that chose to defund 70% of neonatal services, gambling that charities would fill the gap. Yet this is exactly the situation for end-of-life care."
Please read my piece on the travesty of NHS palliative care underfunding 🙏
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Please read my piece on the travesty of NHS palliative care underfunding 🙏
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Reposted by Dr Rachel Clarke
Amazon is helping fund a $300 million build of a ballroom for the White House.
Independent bookstores are donating to food banks and organizations that help with food insecurity.
They are not the same.
Independent bookstores are donating to food banks and organizations that help with food insecurity.
They are not the same.
October 30, 2025 at 4:01 PM
Amazon is helping fund a $300 million build of a ballroom for the White House.
Independent bookstores are donating to food banks and organizations that help with food insecurity.
They are not the same.
Independent bookstores are donating to food banks and organizations that help with food insecurity.
They are not the same.
Just disgusting from 3p Lee - who wants to stigmatise, shame and risk the lives of people with disabilities. Truly gutter politics.
October 29, 2025 at 5:52 PM
Just disgusting from 3p Lee - who wants to stigmatise, shame and risk the lives of people with disabilities. Truly gutter politics.
Heartbroken to read today’s National Audit Office report describing the postcode lottery of care faced by palliative care patients.
Two thirds of hospices are in debt.
Hospices are being forced to cut their staff & beds.
300 beds closed in 2024 alone. 🧵
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...
Two thirds of hospices are in debt.
Hospices are being forced to cut their staff & beds.
300 beds closed in 2024 alone. 🧵
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...
Hundreds of hospice beds and staff cut in England amid funding crisis
National Audit Office reports nearly two-thirds of independent hospices in deficit in 2023-24 as demand increases
www.theguardian.com
October 29, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Heartbroken to read today’s National Audit Office report describing the postcode lottery of care faced by palliative care patients.
Two thirds of hospices are in debt.
Hospices are being forced to cut their staff & beds.
300 beds closed in 2024 alone. 🧵
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...
Two thirds of hospices are in debt.
Hospices are being forced to cut their staff & beds.
300 beds closed in 2024 alone. 🧵
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...
Reposted by Dr Rachel Clarke
“Science is never settled” sounds reasonable—but it’s often a rhetorical trick to undermine consensus on issues like vaccines or climate change.
Science evolves, but some things are overwhelmingly supported by evidence.
My latest for Live Science
www.livescience.com/...
1/10
Science evolves, but some things are overwhelmingly supported by evidence.
My latest for Live Science
www.livescience.com/...
1/10
There is such a thing as 'settled science' — anyone who says otherwise is trying to manipulate you
How bad-faith arguments sow doubt by weaponizing scientific humility.
www.livescience.com
October 28, 2025 at 8:36 AM
“Science is never settled” sounds reasonable—but it’s often a rhetorical trick to undermine consensus on issues like vaccines or climate change.
Science evolves, but some things are overwhelmingly supported by evidence.
My latest for Live Science
www.livescience.com/...
1/10
Science evolves, but some things are overwhelmingly supported by evidence.
My latest for Live Science
www.livescience.com/...
1/10
Lab in surf and seals in sea. Could anything be more joyful? Harley goes wild in Norfolk 💚🐕🐟
October 27, 2025 at 8:52 PM
Lab in surf and seals in sea. Could anything be more joyful? Harley goes wild in Norfolk 💚🐕🐟
Hugely looking forward to discussing UK maternity care, women's bodies, birth trauma & how we make things better for women with two deeply courageous campaigners & authors, former MP Theo Clarke & NHS midwife @leahhazard.bsky.social.
📆 Sun 9 Nov, 10.30am
📍 Stroud
🎟️ @stroudbookfestival.bsky.social
📆 Sun 9 Nov, 10.30am
📍 Stroud
🎟️ @stroudbookfestival.bsky.social
October 27, 2025 at 7:07 PM
Hugely looking forward to discussing UK maternity care, women's bodies, birth trauma & how we make things better for women with two deeply courageous campaigners & authors, former MP Theo Clarke & NHS midwife @leahhazard.bsky.social.
📆 Sun 9 Nov, 10.30am
📍 Stroud
🎟️ @stroudbookfestival.bsky.social
📆 Sun 9 Nov, 10.30am
📍 Stroud
🎟️ @stroudbookfestival.bsky.social
Of course she has. The small matter of owing £122 million to UK taxpayers for her disgusting profiteering in a global pandemic means nothing to Michelle Mone.
NHS staff died in my hospital from the Covid they caught there - her dodgy PPE racket was vile.
NHS staff died in my hospital from the Covid they caught there - her dodgy PPE racket was vile.
October 26, 2025 at 9:13 PM
Of course she has. The small matter of owing £122 million to UK taxpayers for her disgusting profiteering in a global pandemic means nothing to Michelle Mone.
NHS staff died in my hospital from the Covid they caught there - her dodgy PPE racket was vile.
NHS staff died in my hospital from the Covid they caught there - her dodgy PPE racket was vile.
Such a joy to discuss Max, Keira & The Story of a Heart in the company of Max's mum, Emma, & his extraordinary transplant surgeon, Asif Hasan, at Newcastle's Freeman Hospital this month 💙🫀🫁 #organdonation
www.mirror.co.uk/news/tears-s...
www.mirror.co.uk/news/tears-s...
Asif Hasan cried as he read about heart donor Keira Ball
Asif Hasan spoke movingly of the op which changed history, and saw a new organ donor law in England. He has carried out hundreds of transplants in his career.
www.mirror.co.uk
October 26, 2025 at 11:47 AM
Such a joy to discuss Max, Keira & The Story of a Heart in the company of Max's mum, Emma, & his extraordinary transplant surgeon, Asif Hasan, at Newcastle's Freeman Hospital this month 💙🫀🫁 #organdonation
www.mirror.co.uk/news/tears-s...
www.mirror.co.uk/news/tears-s...
Reposted by Dr Rachel Clarke
Absolutely cannot wait to join Rob Delaney to discuss our books & what The Story of a Heart tells us about compassion, care, medical innovation & the NHS 🫀💗🩺
Thank you @intelligence2.bsky.social for arranging this dream conversation.
Please join us!
📆 13 Nov
📍 Kiln Theatre, London
⏰ 7pm
Thank you @intelligence2.bsky.social for arranging this dream conversation.
Please join us!
📆 13 Nov
📍 Kiln Theatre, London
⏰ 7pm
October 22, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Absolutely cannot wait to join Rob Delaney to discuss our books & what The Story of a Heart tells us about compassion, care, medical innovation & the NHS 🫀💗🩺
Thank you @intelligence2.bsky.social for arranging this dream conversation.
Please join us!
📆 13 Nov
📍 Kiln Theatre, London
⏰ 7pm
Thank you @intelligence2.bsky.social for arranging this dream conversation.
Please join us!
📆 13 Nov
📍 Kiln Theatre, London
⏰ 7pm
Dear athletic (or less athletic, as in *me*) friends & followers… might you be up for running next October’s Oxford Half Marathon in aid of @hospiceukraine.com? 🇺🇦
We are a small charity supporting palliative care teams in Ukraine doing amazing work under ongoing conditions of war...
We are a small charity supporting palliative care teams in Ukraine doing amazing work under ongoing conditions of war...
Rachel invited you — don't leave them hanging
Join Rachel at Oxford Half 2026
www.letsdothis.com
October 26, 2025 at 8:16 AM
Dear athletic (or less athletic, as in *me*) friends & followers… might you be up for running next October’s Oxford Half Marathon in aid of @hospiceukraine.com? 🇺🇦
We are a small charity supporting palliative care teams in Ukraine doing amazing work under ongoing conditions of war...
We are a small charity supporting palliative care teams in Ukraine doing amazing work under ongoing conditions of war...
Reposted by Dr Rachel Clarke
Yay. Priceless. The right column at the right time. And a gleefully English two fingers to the haters.
October 25, 2025 at 7:38 AM
Yay. Priceless. The right column at the right time. And a gleefully English two fingers to the haters.
Hospital medicine in perfect pocket canine form today 💙💙💙🐕🐕🐕
October 23, 2025 at 9:16 PM
Hospital medicine in perfect pocket canine form today 💙💙💙🐕🐕🐕
Absolutely cannot wait to join Rob Delaney to discuss our books & what The Story of a Heart tells us about compassion, care, medical innovation & the NHS 🫀💗🩺
Thank you @intelligence2.bsky.social for arranging this dream conversation.
Please join us!
📆 13 Nov
📍 Kiln Theatre, London
⏰ 7pm
Thank you @intelligence2.bsky.social for arranging this dream conversation.
Please join us!
📆 13 Nov
📍 Kiln Theatre, London
⏰ 7pm
October 22, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Absolutely cannot wait to join Rob Delaney to discuss our books & what The Story of a Heart tells us about compassion, care, medical innovation & the NHS 🫀💗🩺
Thank you @intelligence2.bsky.social for arranging this dream conversation.
Please join us!
📆 13 Nov
📍 Kiln Theatre, London
⏰ 7pm
Thank you @intelligence2.bsky.social for arranging this dream conversation.
Please join us!
📆 13 Nov
📍 Kiln Theatre, London
⏰ 7pm
This is Trevor Fisher, speaking to @channel4news.bsky.social from Arthur Rank Hospice in Cambridgeshire this week.
As a palliative care specialist, Trevor’s interview has devastated me.
His hospice has just been told Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust is withdrawing £800k of funding. 🧵
As a palliative care specialist, Trevor’s interview has devastated me.
His hospice has just been told Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust is withdrawing £800k of funding. 🧵
October 4, 2025 at 2:38 PM
This is Trevor Fisher, speaking to @channel4news.bsky.social from Arthur Rank Hospice in Cambridgeshire this week.
As a palliative care specialist, Trevor’s interview has devastated me.
His hospice has just been told Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust is withdrawing £800k of funding. 🧵
As a palliative care specialist, Trevor’s interview has devastated me.
His hospice has just been told Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust is withdrawing £800k of funding. 🧵
"The people who jostled their way into this lane for a grotesquely outsize cash bonanza and then boasted about helping the nation were profiteering, plain and simple."
Brilliantly & appropriately savage from the peerless Marina Hyde 💥
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Brilliantly & appropriately savage from the peerless Marina Hyde 💥
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Michelle Mone told us ‘business isn’t easy’ during Covid. How are things now, your ladyship? | Marina Hyde
After a company she was linked to was ordered to repay £122m it made from pandemic deals, the baroness has embarked on a masterclass in victimhood, says Guardian columnist Marina Hyde
www.theguardian.com
October 4, 2025 at 11:09 AM
"The people who jostled their way into this lane for a grotesquely outsize cash bonanza and then boasted about helping the nation were profiteering, plain and simple."
Brilliantly & appropriately savage from the peerless Marina Hyde 💥
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Brilliantly & appropriately savage from the peerless Marina Hyde 💥
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
On @lbc.co.uk now - please tune in...
Here I am in 2020 in the flimsiest, most pitful PPE - like so many other NHS staff, some of whom died from the Covid they caught in their hospitals.
Tory peer Michelle Mone - who today lost her legal case & must repay the govt £122m - dares to claim she’s been ‘scapegoated’.
What, Michelle? 🧵
Tory peer Michelle Mone - who today lost her legal case & must repay the govt £122m - dares to claim she’s been ‘scapegoated’.
What, Michelle? 🧵
October 1, 2025 at 5:20 PM
On @lbc.co.uk now - please tune in...
Reposted by Dr Rachel Clarke
Is there a reason I ask that the Times are using a picture of asylum seekers in a boat to describe rules for migrants who came on legal routes such as skilled worker visas for doctors?
Tough new conditions to be imposed on migrants who want to settle in the UK will not apply to more than a million people who arrived in the UK under the post-Brexit immigration surge
Labour’s tough new rules will not apply to migrants already in UK
www.thetimes.com
September 30, 2025 at 6:08 AM
Is there a reason I ask that the Times are using a picture of asylum seekers in a boat to describe rules for migrants who came on legal routes such as skilled worker visas for doctors?
Reposted by Dr Rachel Clarke
This must never be allowed to happen again, for there will be other disasters (increasingly) and other greedy unscrupulous people will try to take advantage of the professionalism and generosity of public health workers
Enraging thread 👇
Enraging thread 👇
Here I am in 2020 in the flimsiest, most pitful PPE - like so many other NHS staff, some of whom died from the Covid they caught in their hospitals.
Tory peer Michelle Mone - who today lost her legal case & must repay the govt £122m - dares to claim she’s been ‘scapegoated’.
What, Michelle? 🧵
Tory peer Michelle Mone - who today lost her legal case & must repay the govt £122m - dares to claim she’s been ‘scapegoated’.
What, Michelle? 🧵
October 1, 2025 at 12:38 PM
This must never be allowed to happen again, for there will be other disasters (increasingly) and other greedy unscrupulous people will try to take advantage of the professionalism and generosity of public health workers
Enraging thread 👇
Enraging thread 👇
Reposted by Dr Rachel Clarke
“As thousands of companies bid for contracts to fill the UK’s depleted PPE stockpile, Boris Johnson’s ‘VIP lane’ gave high priority to people with political connections.” www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...
October 1, 2025 at 1:10 PM
“As thousands of companies bid for contracts to fill the UK’s depleted PPE stockpile, Boris Johnson’s ‘VIP lane’ gave high priority to people with political connections.” www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...
Here I am in 2020 in the flimsiest, most pitful PPE - like so many other NHS staff, some of whom died from the Covid they caught in their hospitals.
Tory peer Michelle Mone - who today lost her legal case & must repay the govt £122m - dares to claim she’s been ‘scapegoated’.
What, Michelle? 🧵
Tory peer Michelle Mone - who today lost her legal case & must repay the govt £122m - dares to claim she’s been ‘scapegoated’.
What, Michelle? 🧵
October 1, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Here I am in 2020 in the flimsiest, most pitful PPE - like so many other NHS staff, some of whom died from the Covid they caught in their hospitals.
Tory peer Michelle Mone - who today lost her legal case & must repay the govt £122m - dares to claim she’s been ‘scapegoated’.
What, Michelle? 🧵
Tory peer Michelle Mone - who today lost her legal case & must repay the govt £122m - dares to claim she’s been ‘scapegoated’.
What, Michelle? 🧵
Reposted by Dr Rachel Clarke
The RCP is asking Fellows to vote on key constitutional reforms, including extending the franchise.
A group of 27 Fellows tabled a motion saying reform should be slowed down + done properly.
Not enough information. Too many questions.
Our views here:
tinyurl.com/ye5k2fa2
A group of 27 Fellows tabled a motion saying reform should be slowed down + done properly.
Not enough information. Too many questions.
Our views here:
tinyurl.com/ye5k2fa2
RCP Constitutional Reforms - The Case for No (Not Yet)
The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) is currently asking Fellows to vote on constitutional reforms. The reforms seem relatively straightforward – widening the franchise to allow Collegiate members to...
tinyurl.com
September 28, 2025 at 5:19 PM
The RCP is asking Fellows to vote on key constitutional reforms, including extending the franchise.
A group of 27 Fellows tabled a motion saying reform should be slowed down + done properly.
Not enough information. Too many questions.
Our views here:
tinyurl.com/ye5k2fa2
A group of 27 Fellows tabled a motion saying reform should be slowed down + done properly.
Not enough information. Too many questions.
Our views here:
tinyurl.com/ye5k2fa2
Reposted by Dr Rachel Clarke
The success of the far right is not only measured in votes and seats but in its impact on rhetoric, policy and ideology. The fact that a (nominally) social democratic head of government with a huge majority choses to say and do this is maybe the biggest success of the far right in Europe yet.
September 26, 2025 at 7:29 AM
The success of the far right is not only measured in votes and seats but in its impact on rhetoric, policy and ideology. The fact that a (nominally) social democratic head of government with a huge majority choses to say and do this is maybe the biggest success of the far right in Europe yet.
Superb news showcasing the wonder of medical science.
Huntingdon's is a brutal terminal disease.
This new gene therapy slows the disease's advance by 75%.
One medically retired patient has now returned to work.
Others, expected to need wheelchairs, are walking.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Huntingdon's is a brutal terminal disease.
This new gene therapy slows the disease's advance by 75%.
One medically retired patient has now returned to work.
Others, expected to need wheelchairs, are walking.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Huntington's disease successfully treated for first time
One of the most devastating diseases finally has a treatment that can slow its progression and transform lives, tearful doctors tell BBC.
www.bbc.co.uk
September 24, 2025 at 1:48 PM
Superb news showcasing the wonder of medical science.
Huntingdon's is a brutal terminal disease.
This new gene therapy slows the disease's advance by 75%.
One medically retired patient has now returned to work.
Others, expected to need wheelchairs, are walking.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Huntingdon's is a brutal terminal disease.
This new gene therapy slows the disease's advance by 75%.
One medically retired patient has now returned to work.
Others, expected to need wheelchairs, are walking.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...