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Angela Banner

The Humble Nurse: A Retrospective of the Retiring Angela Cooke’s Career at ellenor

 

“Palliative care has made me a much more tolerant mother. It’s helped me feel more secure about myself, and how to understand – and prioritise – the people who matter to me most. Caring for people in their last moments puts things into perspective, because you realise that the people who are going to be by your bed in your last days – they’re the important ones. Now, I say ‘I love you’ to my family whenever I feel like it. No holding back!” 

On 1 October 2024, Angela Cooke, ellenor’s Practice Development Lead, and a mainstay of the hospice hospice charity for 18 years – will retire after a storied career in palliative care. 

 

And, for almost two decades, Angela has been one of ellenor’s staunchest ambassadors. 

 

Angela’s career in nursing began in 1982, as a nurse at Queen Mary’s hospital in Sidcup. As the century turned, Angela moved into a role as Deputy Manager of Operating Theatres, and why not? She loved it. 

 

But according to Angela, there was a reason she preferred the operating theatre to working in the wider hospital: she hated being the bearer of bad news. “I just couldn’t bring myself to break bad news to the relatives of patients who had died,” says Angela. “It terrified me.” 

 

By 2004, Angela was burnt out; exhausted. She needed a change – a fresh career twist. 

 

“You hear tired or frustrated nurses saying ‘I might as well stack shelves’ – so, when I needed something new, that’s exactly what I did!” says Angela, chuckling. 

 

She took a role in a local supermarket – but wasn’t fulfilled. Deep down, she knew she was meant for more – and that her expertise, empathy, and deep wells of compassion deserved a better canvas. So, when Angela became carer to a relative of her husband’s,  it almost felt like the universe’s way of pulling her back into the right place. 

 

In the course of this care, Angela found out about ellenor. She visited the inpatient ward, met the staff – and before long, ellenor’s nurses were Angela’s colleagues. 

 

“I liked the ward, I liked ellenor’s Hospice at Home care team, and I knew it was a place I wanted to be part of. I picked up the phone, asked if there were any jobs. They hired me the next day.” 

 

It was the start of a new lease of life for Angela - and eventually, ellenor became a family affair. Her daughter, Georgia, joined the team as a data analyst, giving Angela the unique joy of not only watching her daughter grow but also working alongside her in a place that meant so much to them both. 

 

Not long later, she became a full-time Staff Nurse at ellenor, before going to university to delve deeper into palliative care’s most fundamental principles. 

 

Returning to ellenor, she became a manager on the ward, before transferring to clinical governance and, later, accepting an exciting opportunity – to share her passion for palliation with others. 

By now, the world was in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic. In care homes all over the country, people were dying, and their staff – having to deal with more death than they were ever prepared for – were breaking down and deserting their roles. Against this backdrop, a team from ellenor began to develop educational courses tailored to supporting these carers (who Angela calls the “quiet heroes”) not only with ‘hard’ palliative care skills, such as symptom control and verification of death, but with softer ones, too: including communication, wellbeing, and self-care. 

 

“I like to think I humanised the training,” Angela says. “I didn’t want it to be task-oriented or tick-box-oriented, because then you lose the focus on that person in front of you.” 

 

Creating a range of new courses, recruiting facilitators, and delivering the sessions through Zoom wasn’t easy – but Angela had spent a long career rolling with the punches, and she wasn’t about to stop now.  

 

 

Four years later, ellenor’s suite of educational courses is thriving – not only equipping nurses all over the UK to deliver more confident and capable palliative care, but contributing to the £7 million in funding ellenor needs, every year, to deliver its services. What’s more, Angela has helped ensure the systems are in place for ellenor’s educational infrastructure to evolve and grow – even after she’s gone. 

 

That’s Angela’s career, in a nutshell. To understand her impact on palliative care, it’s crucial to understand her personal and professional contributions. So, what has Angela given to palliative care? 

 

Originally from Malaysia, Angela explains how, in her culture, discussing death and dying is taboo. It’s not the ‘done thing’ for a nurse to ask her patient how they feel – that relationship simply doesn’t exist.  

 

For Angela, though, one of her favourite aspects of palliative care has been the ability it has given her to take on these topics with those close to her, and of course with her patients – learning from whom has been, she says, one of the most rewarding parts of her role. 

 

“I’ve learnt what it is to be given a life-limiting diagnosis. I’ve learnt the value of life, and learnt how to approach people. What’s causing them concern? What are the things they feel they’ve lost? I’ve learnt how much these patients love their families, and how that’s more important than anything else. And I’ve learnt how to support those patients to live a good life, with whatever time they have left.” 

 

Angela also credits palliative care with her ability to cope after her mother’s death, and to a newfound patience, tolerance, and understanding with the world around her. 

 

Why palliative care, though? In an interview from 2021, Angela likened her role caring for dying patients to walking with them, along a path through a beautiful garden, to a gate at the end. There, the patient goes through that gate, and Angela heads back down the path to help the next person along. It’s this idea – of helping, and putting other people first – that is, to Angela, the key kernel at the heart of all good approaches to palliative care. And why she loves the discipline she calls “humble nursing”. 

 

“To me, palliative care is about giving – not making yourself look great. It’s people-centred, not career-centred. What’s important is how you give yourself, and what comfort you can provide to that person you’re caring for. It’s about making other people look better, not making yourself look good.” 

 

“It’s giving something of value to someone who has lost all hope.” 

 

It almost seems remarkable that a woman who was once terrified of giving bad news to families has gone on to such a shining, successful career in palliative care – where typically, there is no hope of curing the disease, but only enabling the patient to enjoy the best quality of life possible. 

 

But Angela overcame her fears, with ellenor. And, through her multitude of roles in palliative care – nurse, student, mentor, educator – she has gone one further. She has left a legacy. 

 

High standards; transparency; honesty; empathy; a no-nonsense approach that pays little mind to anything that gets in the way of that personal, profoundly patient-centric focus. 

 

It’s poignant to think of Angela’s ‘Gate at the End of the Path’ analogy and realise that, come October, she will walk that path for the last time as she retires. While her contributions will continue to benefit ellenor, it’s hard to accept that we will soon no longer have this remarkable woman as part of our team. 

 

So thank you, Angela, for your contributions to ellenor, and to the palliative care space at large. We will miss you!