Away from the cameras, Laura has worked as an air ambulance doctor with GNAAS since 2010, and is an Emergency Medicine Consultant in A&E at North Cumbria Integrated Care Trust and the Clinical Director for the Northern Trauma Network.

She also has a military background and has previously been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Laura initially got involved with SAS: Who Dares Wins after her friend spotted an advert on social media saying they were looking for a doctor with military and pre-hospital experience for a TV show.

She said: “When I read the description of the role I thought ‘that’s me’ and I applied. I got a phone call from Channel 4 saying they had my application, arranged an interview and then they got back in touch a week later and offered me the post. That’s when they told me what it was for.”

After accepting the job, Laura did her homework and began watching previous episodes of the show to understand what she’d let herself in for. Although she’d seen it before, she hadn’t really paid attention to the medical adviser/doctor role.

The first series she was involved in was filmed in Wales in 2024 and aired last year, while the second series took her to Morocco in May 2025 and has just finished being broadcast.

By then, the format of the show had evolved and focused solely on celebrities, with the latest series pitching the UK against Australia.

While filming runs for two and a half weeks, a portion of Laura’s work starts before the cameras roll.

She said: “We go out beforehand to meet with all the celebrities for a full medical consultation and review. This takes place three days before filming and gives me the opportunity to meet them individually and get to know them.”

While Laura is the medic viewers see on screen, she is supported behind-the-scenes by a medical team from Secret Compass, who specialise in risk management for tv and film productions, who look after the whole crew when off rig filming.

For the duration of the filming, the days were long, starting at 6am in the morning and often not finishing until 10pm.

Mostly Laura would be stationed on set with the ability to run a medical clinic, be on hand post tasks for injuries and often just listening into the celebs chatting on set and hearing if any issues that need addressing are discussed. Occasionally she would be overseeing the tasks which were classed as high-risk or high contact, such as milling, which is similar to boxing, but with fewer rules.

The types of injuries she treated were mainly musculoskeletal, including soft tissue injuries, sprained ankles, broken ribs and cuts and scrapes.

If a contestant is more seriously injured, they may withdraw voluntarily or on occasion have to be medically withdrawn.

Despite the intensity of the series, Laura described the experience as genuinely fun.

She said: “It’s really nice to work with people from different backgrounds who aren’t medical and get to know them while sharing a few laughs along the way.

“I also enjoyed gaining an insight into the world of TV production. It’s very different to my day to day medical job!”

After filming wrapped in Wales, Laura was asked to return for another series before the show had even aired and flew out to Morocco last year.

She said: “I was much more at ease doing the show the second time around because I knew how it all ran, and was able to be more me, as I’d probably held back a little in the first one. I also received some lovely messages from the editors saying that I came across really well.”

As an ex-military doctor who left the forces two years earlier, the role gave Laura the opportunity to reconnect to the military world without pulling her back into it completely.

She said: “It was nice to do something military again but in a more fun environment and watch the dynamic between the military guys and the TV guys. The directing staff (DS), Foxy, Rudy and Chris, wanted to make the show tough and hard, while the camera crew were focused on getting the right angles and capturing all the drama.”

Laura is due to film the next series of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins later this year and you can catch up on previous episodes here.