Natalie Cassidy trains as carer after father's death

Natalie Cassidy says the final days caring for her dying father were the hardest she has faced. She held his hand and told him it was all right to go.

The experience prompted her to leave her acting job and train as a carer for a new BBC series, Natalie Cassidy: Caring Together. The show examines the financial and staffing pressures facing Britain's care system.

Cassidy returned to education for the first time since leaving school at 16. She completed a Level 3 BTEC in health and social care, studying autism, first aid and dementia, and completed placements at a childhood diabetes unit, St John Ambulance and a care home.

Her father died in April 2021. Cassidy and her family had moved into a house with an annexe so he could live independently while she and his carer, Linda, looked after him.

Cassidy is best known for playing Sonia Fowler in EastEnders, a role she began at age 10. She says caring has run through her life since childhood, when her mother looked after her grandmother.

At college she studied alongside teenagers training to become carers and paramedics. One student, Tilly, has cared for her mother, who has multiple sclerosis and is paralysed from the neck down, since she was young.

The most recent census recorded 5.8 million unpaid carers in the UK. Nearly a third of them provide 50 or more hours of care each week. A BBC survey of more than 600 unpaid carers found more than a third had a household member who gave up work to provide care.

Cassidy says she was most drawn to palliative and elderly care. She volunteered at a dementia home and met Lisa, who has primary progressive multiple sclerosis, and her partner Gary. She also spent time with Monica, a former nurse who has Alzheimer's.

The series launches during Caring Matters, a week of BBC programmes on unpaid carers. Natalie Cassidy: Caring Together begins on Monday 25 May 2026 on BBC One and BBC iPlayer at 13:30.