ACT - The Association for Children's Palliative Care

Brother Francis OSB, CLIC Sargent nurse and Trustee of ACT, the UK charity which represents children with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions and their families, has gained two awards for his dedicated work with children and young people who have cancer. 

The awards recognise Brother Francis’ many years of service providing care and support for seriously ill children, many of which won’t live to reach adulthood.  Brother Francis has played a key role in providing children and their families with ongoing nursing care and a wide range of palliative care support at home – so that children and their loved ones do not have to spend so much time in hospital.

Brother Francis received the The WellChild Best Community Practitioner award, nominated by patients and their families for going beyond the call of duty to help children in his care, and supporting and advising their families at the Demelza-James Project in Brighton - a childrens' community charity providing ongoing nursing care at home for children and their families. The award was presented by Prince Harry on Monday 22nd October at the 3rd WellChild and Best Magazine Children’s Health Awards held at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London.

The second, an Exceptional Care Award, was presented by the Sussex Cancer Partnership in September – again for supporting children, young people and their families in the community so to limit hospital visits and minimize disruption to their lives.

Brother Frances said: “I am deeply honoured that I have been given these wonderful awards – however I want to honour and remember the children and families that I work with every day – I am always moved by young people’s resilience, spirit and bravery. Each day of the year in the UK ten families are told that their child has leukaemia. From that day on their lives will never be the same again.  My role is to try and help these children and their families cope and keep life as normal as possible. Each day brings new challenge, new possibilities and sometimes sadness.”

Brother Francis is a Benedictine monk with over twenty years nursing experience, and enjoys a wide variety of clinical and counselling experiences.  With a background in both childrens’ and adults’ palliative care, Brother Francis is a long-serving Trustee of the UK charity ACT and a community clinical nurse specialist in paediatric oncology and palliative care for CLIC Sargent.

Lizzie Chambers, ACT Chief Executive added: “We are delighted that Brother Francis has been so highly commended for his commitment to supporting these children and their families.  His energy and clinical excellence is an inspiration to ACT – we are fortunate that Brother Frances has been an ACT trustee for so many years – he has played a key role in so much of our work including helping to develop the ACT Care Pathways for children and young people that guide our work.”