Professor Geoffrey Hanks, Professor of Palliative Medicine and Honorary Consultant in Palliative Medicine at the University of Bristol and University Hospitals Bristol until 2006 died on Thursday 27 June.

Professor Hanks was responsible for setting up the UHBristol Specialist Palliative Care service when he and his team moved to Bristol from St Thomas’ Hospital in 1993. His wide-ranging academic work spanned the first randomised controlled trial of controlled-release morphine, through the formation of the NCRI Palliative Care Clinical Studies Group which he chaired from 2003-2005, to the editorship of the first three editions of the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine.

 

His contribution to the clinical specialty included the setting up of the Specialist Palliative Care Units at both the Royal Marsden and St Thomas’s as well as serving on the Specialist Advisory Committee for Palliative Medicine. He was also instrumental in persuading Macmillan to fund the majority of the early registrar training posts in Palliative Medicine.  Internationally he held many positions (including President) on the board of the European Association for Palliative Care from its inception.  Above all he was a kind, gentle friend and colleague and will be greatly missed by us all.

 

Donations to support palliative care research, his lifelong work, can be made here, or by cheque (ref Geoff Hanks Memorial) to Dimbleby Cancer Care, 4 Floor Management Office, Bermondsey Wing, Guy’s Hospital, Great Maze Pond, London SE1 9RT.