My first experience with death & dying was when I was 17. The matriarch of my family, my nanna (funnily enough also named Ann), died peacefully at home surrounded by her family. Although her death left us all heart broken, in my opinion she had a good death. My nanna was comfortable, calm and right where she wanted to be, in the privacy of her own home.

In the years after her death, I would often find myself thinking ‘but what if we couldn’t have got her home?’. How very different our experience might have been. How different her death might have been.

Working in healthcare, death was almost a daily occurrence. But not the way I had experienced it before. A lot of the deaths I witnessed weren’t, in my opinion, good deaths. They weren’t comfortable, or calm, or private……It was clear to me that people dying in hospitals needed better support, better resources, and better conversations around death & dying.

Cue the Anne Robson Trust!

I first met Liz, our Founder & CEO in 2022 whilst in my previous role project managing an end-of-life volunteer service at an NHS Trust. I attended 2 days of Anne Robson Trust training in October 2022. I spent both training days and all the time since in complete awe of Liz and the team and all they had already achieved in supporting those experiencing death & dying. 

I realised quickly that The Anne Robson Trust values were almost identical to my own – making it incredibly easy to work in a way that represents these values and I hope I am able to continue to do so for many years to come.