Dear NHS: 100 Stories to Say Thank You has been assembled from some of the best-known voices in the UK in a week and will be published in July

Adam Kay, who has topped bestseller charts with his stories of life as as junior doctor in This Is Going to Hurt, is pulling together a book of “love letters to the NHS” from major names including Paul McCartney, Michael Palin, Stephen Fry and Emma Thompson.

Kay started the project a week ago and already has 100 contributors signed up, from authors such as Lee Child, Jacqueline Wilson, EL James and Jilly Cooper to presenters including Graham Norton, Emily Maitliss and Peter Kay, actors from Dawn French to Emilia Clarke and Joanna Lumley, and sportspeople including Peter Crouch and Tanni Grey-Thompson.

Each is writing a personal story about how the NHS was there for them and how it changed their lives, with all profits from the book to go to NHS Charities Together and the Lullaby Trust, which supports parents bereaved of babies and young children.

“Every single one of us owes so much to the NHS. It is our single greatest achievement as a nation, always there for us, and never more so than now,” said Kay, a former junior doctor turned comedian and writer. “Since this project was conceived barely a week ago, I have been blown away by the number of people who have been in touch to share their amazing stories. I hope that the book, and the money it raises for charity, will in some way manage to say thank you to the heroes who are putting our lives before their own every day.”

Bill Bryson, Nick Hornby, Ian Rankin and Martin Freeman will also be among the letter writers, as will Caitlin Moran, Peter Capaldi and Zoe Ball. The book will be published on 9 July.

Publisher Orion’s Anna Valentine said the stories told were “by turns deeply moving, hilarious, hopeful and impassioned”.

Orion’s parent company, Hachette UK, recently began offering free ebooks to NHS workers, after author Mari Hannah was contacted by a frontline NHS worker telling her that her books were keeping her spirits up.