Only Human After All

Step behind the scenes of hospital life with Only Human After All, a heartwarming and insightful podcast that introduces you to the extraordinary people who make healthcare happen. Hosted by Dr. James Thomas, a Deputy Medical Director, and Andrea Clegg, an Associate Director of Nursing, this series uncovers the personal stories of the individuals working tirelessly in our hospitals.Each episode shines a spotlight on a different member of the team, from surgeons and therapists to porters and IT staff. Through candid conversations, James and Andrea delve into their guests’ lives, exploring their childhoods, influences, passions, and the unique journeys that led them to healthcare.Only Human After All offers a fresh perspective on the human side of medicine, breaking down the barriers of uniforms and job titles to reveal the dedication, humor, and heart behind every role. Whether it’s a childhood dream fulfilled, a life-changing event, or an unexpected career path, each story is a remin

Only Human After All is a health podcast hosted by James Thomas, with 31 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

James Thomas hosts Only Human After All, a health show with 31 episodes published.

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  Episode #35

  Breathing Life into Healthcare Science; Emma Crookes

  Jun 21, 202625 min

  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.

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  Episode #34

  Preparing for the worst, living for today: Lauren Ward

  May 25, 202627 min

  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.

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  Episode #33

  Cherry Lee: Leadership, Lorries and Living Life Unapologetically

  May 2, 202627 min

  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.

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  Episode #32

  Maxwell Rousell: Finding Your Niche - From Apprentice to Digital Champion

  Apr 19, 202623 min

  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.

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  Episode #30

  Colin Dunkley: The Quiet Revolutionary - Epilepsy, Emotion and Working Upstream

  Mar 22, 202634 min

  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. Twenty years before the NHS 10-year plan talked about prevention over treatment, Colin realised he couldn’t fix epilepsy care from a clinic. He had to change the entire landscape. That meant creating national tariffs so children could be seen in specialist clinics. Building a network of paediatricians across the country. Writing training curricula. Developing courses that now run in countries around the world. And learning that sometimes leadership means making way for others - especially young people whose voices are more compelling than any professional case. We explore why kids keep you authentic, why you have to be emotionally involved to make a diagnosis in epilepsy, how stigma still haunts a condition that affects identity and control, and what it means to give your life to work that blurs into everything else. Colin also shares why he cooks without recipes, lives in fear of repeating himself, and finds refuge in the work when being on microphones terrifies him. For the quietly spoken introvert who comes alive when talking about his specialist subject, this is what revolution looks like.

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