My friend and colleague Caty Pannell, who has died suddenly of a pulmonary embolism aged 51, was a talented nurse who improved the quality of palliative care for many patients.
In 2010 she took up the new post of palliative care research nurse in the Cicely Saunders Institute at King’s College London. In this pioneering post, she recruited people across the South London Clinical Research Network. Sometimes visiting patients at home, Caty encouraged those with serious illnesses to make their own decisions about helping with research on, for example, breathlessness. Her findings would help towards relieving this, and other symptoms, of disease. She also made patients’ information leaflets easier to read and to understand.
She was awarded a certificate of excellence for innovative research on Parkinson’s palliative care, and was co-author of four academic research papers, one now cited in American oncology guidelines.
Caty was born in Copmanthorpe, a village near York, the daughter of John Pannell, an engineer, and his wife, Sue (nee Cameron), a teacher. She went to Harris Church of England school, in Rugby, Warwickshire, and Rugby high school, and trained as a nurse at the Oxford School of Nursing and John Radcliffe hospital. She moved to Guy’s hospital, London, in 1994, and spent the rest of her life living and working in the south London area. She worked at St Christopher’s Hospice in Sydenham, and moved back to Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital in 1999, as a clinical nurse specialist in palliative care.
An active member of the congregation and a volunteer at St Mary’s, Kennington, south London, she helped support the homeless guests at the Robes Project, sat on the parochial church council, led prayers on Sunday mornings, and greeted other worshipers.
Caty adored music. Her initial exposure to classical music was a performance of Handel’s La Resurrezione, which she attended with a friend who promised she could leave at the interval if she did not get on with the music – she had been more interested in pop until then. But she was hooked, and became an avid concert-goer, adding to her new-found passion for Baroque and early music an interest in modern composers and in opera.
She was also an enthusiast of modern poets as well as Ted Hughes, Philip Larkin, Andrew Marvell, the Liverpool poets and the first world war poets.
Another way many bonded with Caty was through her fabulous cooking, whether a Sunday lunch for four or a party in her flat in Kennington, with friends crowding in and spilling into her garden.
Caty is survived by her parents and her brother, Dominic.
