Her initial appearance on CBeebies sparked a controversy about children's television presenters with physical disabilities and the apparent prejudice of complainants.
She has appeared in UK television parts in Holby City, EastEnders,[16] Grange Hill,[17] The Bill, and Comedy Lab.
[18][19] She starred in The First to Go by Nabil Shaban, about the "Disabled Holocaust" in Nazi Germany, playing the part of Brunhilde, at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh in 2008.
[4][10] Within a month of her beginning co-presenting, the BBC faced controversy as parents claimed in complaints that the one-armed presenter was scaring children, and that this prompted difficult conversations to explain her disability.
[11][21] She, the BBC, and multiple disability groups stated that the problem was actually the prejudices of the parents projected onto the children.
In 2018, Burnell played the role of Penny Stevenson for a short stint in the Birmingham-based soap opera Doctors.