This lamp stands beside a photo of my late parents and me taken just before I joined St Christopher's in 1979. Six years later my mum became a patient at St Christopher's and we experienced at first hand everything that Cicely Saunders had worked so hard to pioneer: skilled and compassionate care and the closest attention to detail. How lucky we were.

On a professional level, the past 30 years in the Hospice information service have given me a precious insight into how the principles of hospice and palliative care have been adapted across the world to benefit countless other patients and families.