My friend Maureen Lahiff, who has died aged 90 of pancreatic cancer, was a pioneering nurse leader and innovator in nurse education. Her strong Christian faith enabled her to come to terms with the death of both her sons.
Maureen was born in Richmond, Surrey, younger sister of Margaret, and daughter of parents Catherine (nee Wale) and Edward Coleman. At the start of the second world war, Catherine took her daughters to live with her parents in Coventry. After it was bombed in the blitz, they moved to Lincolnshire. When they returned to Richmond Maureen’s school had been bombed, and she attended four different schools in a year.
In her teens, Maureen felt a call to the vocation of nursing, but mass X-ray screening diagnosed her with tuberculosis – and so she began three years of treatment, rest and learning about nursing from a patient perspective and nursing journals. Then, after general training at Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge, Maureen worked principally in the south of England, though with two years from 1962 in Australia and New Zealand, and completed thoracic, midwifery, health visitor and tutor training.
In 1968 she married Kerry Lahiff. Their son, Michael, born a year later, had Down’s syndrome. His brother, David, was born in 1972.
Maureen led the first part-time health visitor course in the UK, at South Bank Polytechnic in London. In 1976 she went to North East Surrey College of Technology, in Epsom, where her idea about developing nurses for advanced clinical practice resulted in the first degree course for qualified nurses in the UK, strengthening the many clinical nurse specialist posts being created at the time.
Her career flourished. She undertook a master’s degree at the University of Surrey, and in 1990 was appointed professor of nursing at Hatfield Polytechnic (now Hertford University), nurse leader in Bloomsbury, central London, and nurse adviser at the Royal College of Nursing.
When she was chief nurse for Bloomsbury Health Authority, and on a study tour to America in 1986 she saw how executive nurses had real power, status and authority. On her return, she and her colleague Sheila Roy, then chief nurse for North West London Health Authority, in 1988 set up the UK Executive Nurse Network, which continues to be a powerhouse for those in top nursing posts.
David’s death at 20 from an epileptic seizure devastated Maureen and Kerry, triggering the development of research into Sudden Unexplained Death from Epilepsy (SUDEP) and the establishment of SUDEP Action, an education and support organisation, of which Maureen was a trustee for many years.
Michael’s sudden death at 39 was another sorrowful blow. Maureen wrote Michael: A Transforming Presence, in which she described her struggle in accepting Michael’s condition, ethical issues involved in antenatal diagnosis of chromosomal anomalies and Michael’s extraordinary effect on those around him. The response to the book, published last year, was a great source of affirmation to her.
Maureen coped with Kerry’s dementia and death in 2018 and her final illness with dignity and acceptance. She found many positives, including the change from a “healthy” diet to a low-fibre one, with lashings of cream with everything and plenty of chocolate – especially mint flavour.
She is survived by a niece, Debbie, and nephew, Ian.
