Biography

January 22, 1931 · Stepney, London, England, UK

October 11, 2010 · Harrow, London, England, UK (complications following intestinal surgery)

Claire Berenice Berkovitch

Appointed an OBE in 1996 "for services to women's issues and to health issues".

Writer, broadcaster and social campaigner. She began her career in nursing before turning to writing after the birth of her first child in 1960.

She was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1996 Queen's New Year Honours List for her services to Women and Health Issues.

Her birth was registered under the surname Berkovitch (this is also on her birth certificate), although her parents would later change the family name, from Berkovitch to Berk to Brandon, finally settling on Chetwynd, as it had an aristocratic ring to it.

She was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1996 Queen's Honours List for her services to health and community.

[Aware her death was imminent, she told relatives she wanted her last words to be:] Tell David Cameron that if he screws up my beloved NHS I'll come back and bloody haunt him.

The majority of Nurses and Doctors and all Health Professionals are doing their job because they want to help people. And they care about the patient. The trouble is many of them have been demoralised, exhausted by the constant pressure, they are overstretched, they can't catch up with all the work they ought to do because of these pernicious Targets which insists they only spend just so much money or do something very, very quickly. I keep saying this, people are not just funny little objects on a production line in a factory. So you put in incentives to make bored staff work a bit harder you get more of your funny little things. This isn't what we are, we are people. Get rid of the Targets. I'm not saying it would do it, but it would take a burden off the backs of the people doing the work that would be enormous, they feel at the moment as if they're between two millstones. On the top millstone is the government demands about Targets pressing down on them constantly and at the bottom is patient need pushing up. And you're ground in between the two. If you're a professional working in the NHS now it's heartbreaking to see them. The Nurses and the Doctors themselves are getting ill because of it. It's just not good enough. They've got to take the pressure off.