YOUR LIFE IN MY HANDS

(Metro £8.99) IN 2003, Rachel Clarke found herself under fire in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where she was reporting on the brutal civil war. Soon afterwards, she left her career in journalism to train as a doctor, following her father and grandfather.

Her passionate, polemical memoir of working on the front line in the NHS combines tender accounts of patients whose dire situations have been alleviated by the kindness and expertise of medical staff with a forceful argument that the current strain on the NHS is such that doctors are unable to do their jobs.

Two shocking anecdotes stand out: the death in hospital of Clarke’s 96-yearold grandfather, whose calls for help went unanswered by ward staff; and the plight of a desperately ill child, whose surgeon was refused permission to operate by a (medically unqualified) bed manager.