Only Human After All

Emma Crookes is the Respiratory and Sleep Physiological Science Service Manager at Sherwood Forest Hospitals. In this episode, she opens the door on healthcare science, one of the NHS's least understood professions.

Emma explains how her team diagnoses and treats sleep apnoea, a condition affecting around 5% of the population that often goes unnoticed until a partner points out the snoring and breathlessness in the night. She talks through lung function tests, the psychology of getting nervous patients to blow into intimidating machines, and the 8,000 patients on CPAP treatment across the trust.

She reflects on a career that started in equine sports science, a chance conversation with her auntie about a job advert, and twenty years building a service that sits under the healthcare science umbrella that most people have never heard of. Along the way she shares why she still does a little jig when she sees healthcare science listed as a career option for schoolchildren and why getting people moving despite breathlessness matters as much as any medication.

A conversation about diagnosis, motivation and a profession working quietly behind the scenes to keep patients breathing easier.

Lauren Ward plans for the moments nobody wants to imagine. As Emergency Planning and Business Continuity Officer, she helps ensure the NHS is ready for everything from major incidents to power failures and extreme weather. But behind her role lies an extraordinary personal story of RAF service, two cancer diagnoses in a single year, losing the career she loved and finding a new purpose helping others. A moving conversation about resilience, leadership, family and staying calm when life takes an unexpected turn.

Cherry Lee has a shaved head, tattoos and piercings. She drives a lorry. She's the lead singer of an 80s/90s rock band called Thick Skinned. And she's one of the most thoughtful, strategic leaders you'll ever meet.

Deputy General Manager for Surgery. Former jockey, former rugby player, former nurse, former ODP, former Surgical Care Practitioner. Someone who's learned that assumptions are usually wrong.

Her journey includes a cardiac arrest at 19 that ended her sport career. Her parents consented to amputation. Surgeons in Scarborough saved her leg. A consultant told her: "Your sport career is over. But you've still got a life. So think about what you want to do."

So she became a patient. Then institutionalized to hospital life. Then a nurse who saw ODPs doing the exciting bits in resus and thought "that's for me." Then operations. Then leadership.

Six careers. Never settling for the status quo. Never letting anyone else define who she should be.

Her advice to her younger self? "All the mistakes I've made have made me who I am. Just do what you want to in the moment and it'll take you where it needs to go."

Don't judge the book by its cover. You'll miss the whole story.

Maxwell Rousell is 20. He's a Digital and Social Inclusion Coordinator. And he's spent three and a half years finding out exactly where he belongs in the NHS.

His job is to help patients navigate the NHS app and digital services. He goes to libraries, community events, welfare centres - anywhere people might need help but be afraid to ask. And what he's discovered challenges everything we think we know about digital exclusion.

The older generation can't use smartphones? Wrong. Maxwell works with a 92-year-old who knew more about the NHS app than he did when he started. The real barrier isn't age - it's economics. It's access. It's confidence.

Maxwell's own journey is a story of finding your place. An apprenticeship gave him his break into the NHS. Andrea became his "work grandma" (his real grandma is a nurse too, and incredibly proud). He tried different roles. He discovered he prefers project work to operations. He learned that sometimes it takes time to find your niche.

Outside work, he's a petrol head - German performance cars, race events, talking his grandma's ear off about brake horsepower.

But inside work, he's found his purpose: supporting people directly while working on the systems that make care easier for patients.

Because that's why we're all here.

In this episode, we meet Colin Dunkley, a paediatrician who specialises in epilepsy. Colin didn’t choose epilepsy because he loved it - he chose it because it was being done badly and families were arriving in his clinic traumatized with nowhere to turn.

In this episode, we meet Arron Smith, Specialty General Manager for Theatres, Anaesthetics and Critical Care. Arron came to the NHS just over two years ago from the RAF - with zero clinical background and everything to learn.

We explore the two sliding doors moments that shaped his path: being rejected by the police and marines but accepted by the Air Force, and losing his father a year before leaving the military. The care his dad received from Dr Dennis and the ward nurses showed Arron the human side of the NHS - and inspired him to give back.

Arron shares what surprised him most about working in healthcare (the iceberg of work patients never see), how military leadership has evolved from command and control to followship, why the best pilots aren't necessarily the best leaders (and what that means for medical leadership), and what it's like trying to bring structure to an organization where you can't pause to fix things - you're fixing the aeroplane while it's flying.

From chairing a local sports charity to traveling the country watching Middlesbrough, Arron reminds us that rejection can lead you exactly where you need to be. 

In this episode, we meet Sally Palmer, Nurse Consultant in Infection Prevention and Control. Most people never see what Sally does - and if she's doing it well, they never will. Because the best infection control is invisible.

Sally's work runs at 100 miles an hour. Checking overnight results. Investigating outbreaks. Building water safety protocols. Designing ventilation specs for new buildings. Working with charities on antimicrobial resistance that crosses from animals to humans through the food chain. No two days are the same. Get it right and nobody notices. Get it wrong and people die.

We explore what happens in labs (Sally recommends everyone visit at least once), why regional teams standardise policies so patients get the same care wherever they go,and what COVID taught us that IPC teams already knew. 

From St John Ambulance as a child to wearing countless hats now, Sally reminds us that prevention has always been the mission.

As part of National Apprenticeship Week 2026, this special episode of Only Human After All explores how apprenticeships are transforming careers.

We meet three apprentices at very different stages of life and work.

Richie is about to qualify as a physiotherapist in his 30s after years of practical experience and self-doubt about whether he had the “right” grades.

Lacey thought her university plans had collapsed before discovering an apprenticeship she didn’t even know existed.

Vinzlee never believed she was “smart enough” and credits the people who believed in her first.

We also speak to Carolyn, our Apprenticeship Lead, about the power of growing our own workforce, widening access and recognising that intelligence is about far more than exam results.

This episode is about confidence, experiential learning, belonging and the impact of someone saying, “You can do this.”

If you think apprenticeships are only for school leavers, this conversation may change your mind.

In this episode of Only Human After All, we meet Amanda Barrett, a nurse by background who now leads major improvement projects across diagnostics.

Amanda talks about her personal journey from ward leadership into project management, and how her nursing identity continues to shape her work. She gives a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the new Community Diagnostic Centre in Mansfield — now open and delivering faster, more accessible tests in a welcoming community setting. Amanda shares the complexities of designing a new healthcare facility from scratch, her passion for patient-centred improvement, and the emotional moments that stay with her from her clinical career.

The conversation also touches on her pride in seeing her daughter become a children's nurse, and the value of following your own path in healthcare. This is a thoughtful and inspiring episode about legacy, leadership, and never losing sight of the patient.

This episode was originally recorded in June 2025.

In this episode, we meet Jo Freeman, Assistant Chief Pharmacist at Sherwood Forest Hospitals for the past 12 years.

When the chief pharmacist post came up, people kept asking why she wasn’t applying. But a colleague warned her about the flattery trap - and Jo chose to stay where she adds the most value.