More than a memoir: the start of the patient revolution
BY Tilly Rose
5th Feb 2026
In this blog Tilly Rose, patient advocate and author of the bestselling memoir Be Patient shares her journey to publication and advice for budding memoir writers.
Being a ‘medical mystery' for over 20 years, means I’ve spent a lifetime navigating GP waiting rooms, A&E departments and hospital wards. I’ve been given a front row seat watching humanity at its worst (or its best, depending on how you look at it). Along the way, I’ve become highly qualified at two things: being a patient and being very patient.
On one hospital admission in 2020, I read Adam Kay’s memoir This is Going to Hurt giving a candid account of our NHS from the perspective of a junior doctor. I immediately thought ‘there has to be a patient reply to this’. My response: ‘it did hurt. It hurt a lot.’
I remember messaging my mum: ‘I’m going to write a book. I even have the title: BE PATIENT.’
From the start, Be Patient was always set to be much more than a book. I had seen too many things on our hospital wards that I couldn’t unsee. I was determined that Be Patient would be part of my wider mission to impact patient care.
In the media, I had observed again and again how patients were reduced to mere statistics. I was determined to illustrate how it felt to be a human being at the centre of this broken system.
A few months later, when I was out of hospital, I applied for CBC’s Memoir course. I was so excited to be offered a place. During this invaluable program I honed my writing skills and learnt how to structure my notepad bursting with patient anecdotes into a narrative with humour, emotion and depth.
BE PATIENT was born.
When I was, subsequently, offered a publishing deal by Hachette, it really felt like my ‘something good, out of something bad.’
The next bit - time to write an entire book! I lived out my chapters, as I wrote them, from my hospital bed. I was writing a story where even the author didn’t know the ending. In the pages of my book, my own narrative was punctuated with ‘patient survival tips’ empowering patients and their loved ones. I submitted my full manuscript to the publishers whilst tied to a 24-hour oxygen machine. And yet, throughout it all Be Patient remained my flicker of hope.
My book launch at Daunt, Marylebone was attended by over 200 people. Donna Ashworth, Giovanna Fletcher, Abi Morgan and Frankie Bridge endorsed Be Patient. I still can’t believe their names are on the front of my book. A national billboard campaign followed. It felt like a truly full-circle moment when The Times coined ‘Be Patient’ ‘an antidote to This is Going to Hurt… the other side of Britain’s hospital wards.’
With this buzz around my book, I was getting the patient voice out there. Chronically ill patients and their loved ones were saying this was the first time they felt truly seen. Those who had remained relatively untouched by health challenges were saying it was a huge learning curve but also read like a compelling, page-turning novel. This was the aim; to hold the hand of those on their own patient journey but also to open the worlds’ eyes to the reality of patient life that so often remains hidden behind closed doors. My overriding message is that we are all patients at some point in our lives. It is, sadly, the one experience that none of us can escape. Whether we have a brief interaction with a GP or spend months in hospital, in some capacity it will touch us all. So Be Patient is a book for everyone. Whether we are fighting for ourselves or our loved ones, I believe patient care is a cause we should all be invested in.
My cause is now gaining momentum! Off the back of Be Patient I am now working with the NHS Confederation and global medical organisations and charities to give patients a voice. Following my coaching qualification from the University of Cambridge, I am coaching chronically ill patients, as well as training medical organisations and bio-techs in the importance of understanding the patient perspective. In October I opened and closed the Global Tuberculosis Summit.
I am now partnering with Mumsnet to raise awareness on ‘Medical Misogyny’; using my personal experiences shared in ‘Be Patient’, as well as the stories of the brave women I have met along the way to campaign to change the frightening, yet predictable pattern of women being told their symptoms are ‘all in their head.’
Next month, my mum (who Be Patient is dedicated to - my own personal medical detective) and I are heading to Brussels for EURORDIS (Rare Disease Europe) award ceremony. I have been shortlisted as one of three finalists for my patient advocacy and contribution to rare disease awareness. These are all things I manifested from my hospital bed and they are happening!
In Be Patient I write ‘Dandelions don’t just grow in lush green fields but in the rough cracks between the pavement.’ Dandelions have become my symbol for all the incredibly brave patients I have met along the way.
Just as dandelions blow in the wind and spread their seeds to ensure other dandelions bloom, Be Patient was my little seed of an idea that grew from my hospital bed, one of the roughest cracks of all. Now those bright yellow buds are emerging in places I never could have imagined.
Be Patient is more than a memoir . . . it is the start of the patient revolution!
TOP TIPS FOR ASPIRING MEMOIR WRITERS
- Apply for the CBC Memoir course – I learnt so much on this programme about how to shape my story into a structured narrative. It also gave me an insight into the world of literary agents and publishers which proved invaluable during the submissions process.
- Read other memoirs – I pitched Be Patient in a proposal that in part, read like a business pitch. It was essential to have other memoirs to compare it to, to understand where it would be positioned on the shelf and to show that there was a gap in the market for my story.
- Think about the personal and the universal – a memoir may be your story but it also needs to be able to be relatable to wider audience. Pull out the universal themes.
- Be patient – no really . . . my memoir went through a million different drafts. Reams of writing ended up in the bin. I started over so many times. You need to be totally committed to your idea; it needs to be a concept that you can’t let go of. Be Patient is a completely different book to the one it started as. A memoir has the power to change the world and changing the world doesn’t happen overnight.
Tilly Rose studied on our Writing Your Novel – Three Months course and our Five-Day Memoir Writing Intensive in 2020. On her Instagram @thattillyrose she shares the daily reality of life as a patient.
Tilly’s extraordinary memoir Be Patient is out now in paperback! Get your hands on a copy.
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