My wife, Liz Wolstenholme, who has died of cancer aged 78, combined family life with a career in health and social care, mainly in Yorkshire.
Liz’s achievements came from being a quiet, firm and inspirational leader who worked behind the scenes to unite disparate factions of the organisations in which she was employed. She placed collaboration ahead of competition and was always on the side of the underdog.
The second daughter of Eric Flint, a teacher, and his wife, Doris (nee Stone), a nurse, Liz was born in Borrowash, Derbyshire, but soon afterwards the family moved to West Hartlepool in County Durham, where she grew up. Her teenage years were spent in north London, where she went to Downer grammar school in Harrow. She and I met at Nottingham University, where Liz graduated in economics, in 1963, and we married in 1966. We had three children, Matthew, Tom and Susie. She was particularly close to our daughter-in-law, Lis, Tom’s wife.
Over the years Liz worked for Bradford social services department as a research officer, Yorkshire regional health authority as a community care manager and Bradford family health services as chief executive, and was a senior civil servant in the Department of Health in Leeds and London, leading on policy for older people and people with disabilities. While in that role she also produced the national framework for NHS continuing health care.
Her main mission, long before integrated care existed, was to ensure health and social care had a better working relationship. In the 1990s she led a national support force travelling throughout England for the NHS to encourage just that.
Liz was appointed CBE in 1998 for her contributions to health. On retirement she was chair of Bradford primary care trust and national chair of the trustees of Parkinson’s UK, the first chair to actually have the condition herself, having being diagnosed 28 years ago.
At home she was a natural conservationist who, long before we understood carbon footprints, loved shopping at car boot sales and charity shops.
She is survived by me, our children and three grandchildren, Molly, Sophie and Zahara, and her sister, Jess.
