Our thanks to Robert Jones for sharing this news. Ed
Many people on the Island, and much further afield, will be saddened by the death of Nancy Ellacott, MBE, formery Chief Civilian Nursing Officer at the Ministry of Defence, and since her alleged retirement, a mainstay of patient and public representation in the NHS on the Isle of Wight.
I served as her vice-chairman at the Patient and Public Involvement in Health Forum, then at the Local Involvement Network which succeeded it, and finally we worked together on the Patients Council at St Mary’s Hospital, where, until early this year, we both served as joint vice chairmen.
Always busy
This was just a fraction of her activity – she was a visiting examiner at the University of Aberdeen; a patron, with her husband Barrie, of Ventnor Cricket Club, Secretary of the Civil Service Pensioners’ Alliance, branch chairman of her local Conservative Association, and a member of the Conservative Association’s Executive.
She helped to interview older pupils at Island schools, in mock job interviews, and regularly attended the NHS Trust Board as an observer and participant, having also served on the Health and Wellbeing Board of the Isle of Wight Council – I’m not sure I even know of all of her activities: how SHE kept up with them all is a mystery to me.
Funeral arrangements
Nancy became seriously ill last year with leukaemia, but kept on working until it simply became impossible.
Nancy died, aged 77, at the Earl Mountbatten Hospice on Monday 16th February.
Her funeral will be held at the Crematorium on Monday 9th March, at 1.30pm.
Our thanks to Nancy’s husband Barrie for permission to use this photo of Nancy.
