A virtual performance of the play ‘Fighting For Life'

Brian Daniels is an award-winning playwright who has written more than 20 performed plays on a range of social and health issues. He was commissioned by the National Council for Palliative Care (now Hospice UK) to write 'Homeward Bound' and 'Bounce Back Boy' both filed and used extensively for education and training. He has been commissioned by three separate hospices to write about palliative care - the plays are 'Hello, my name is' based on the life of the late Dr Kate Granger, 'Both Sides Now' about younger people dealing with the loss of a loved family member. His play 'Let's Talk Lymphoedema' was launched in New York in 2021 and will be performed at St's George's Hospital, Tooting in September 2021. He is currently researching for a new play about the incidence of younger men who end their own lives. Brian is represented by Meg Davis at the Ki Agency and interested to create drama around any health and social issue for education and training purposes. 

The ‘Fighting For Life’ play is based on the real lives and experiences of Helen’s parents and their family in trying to get appropriate care and support for both parents towards the end of their lives. Her mother lived with dementia for 10 years and her father cared for her at their home for around 8 years before he was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease aged 85 and died 7 weeks later. After her father’s death in hospital, Helen co-authored a family case study called ‘The Findlay Report’ covering a four-month period towards the end of her father’s life that highlights their experiences and recommendations on how things could have been better handled. This report has been used as a campaign tool by family members and provided inspiration for the writing of the play (a copy of the report and story of how it came to be written can be found on the play website: www.fightingforlife.org.uk) Helen’s working career has been spent in communications at senior levels within the business, industry, public and charitable sectors and consultancy. Following the experience with her father and mother, she moved into palliative care research and is an active voluntary member of PPI groups at Marie Curie; Cicely Saunders Institute (King’s College); Hospice UK and for 10 years with the National Council for Palliative Care and has spoken at numerous conferences, seminars and training events. She is also a PPI member of the NIHR Hospice Consortium Partnership and on the PPI steering group for the Embed-Care Dementia research project. Helen holds Bachelor and Master’s degrees in politics and was awarded a PhD in 2018 (Brunel University) for her thesis exploring perspectives on service user involvement in palliative care and potential pressures that could influence the way such care is provided in the future.