The writer and producer has become a household name after TV hits, Line of Duty and Bodyguard.
Born Gerald Gary Mercurio in Nelson, the 54-year-old is a former hospital doctor and Royal Air Force officer.
He began a career in TV drama when he stumbled across an advert in the British Medical Journal from a production company interested in developing a TV medical drama.
The company was Tony Garnett’s World Productions and the drama went on to become Cardiac Arrest, starring Helen Baxendale and Andrew Lancel, which launched in 1994.
The series sparked controversy due to its realistic depiction of hospital life, topping a poll of UK medical professionals as the most realistic medical drama of all time.