Elizabeth Wincott 1941–2008

Elizabeth Wincott has died of cancer at the age of 67. She was appointed in David Ratsey's presidential term, as chief executive of the Faculty and the Homeopathic Trust in 1994. Faculty council meetings were chaotic affairs with 40 or so people clustered round the long table in the Boardroom of the old RLHH, all trying to get their points of view across. A subsequent president of the Faculty, David Owen was strongly aided by Elizabeth in asserting a new, more focussed and efficient order in the structure we broadly see today, with specialist committees and a much smaller, yet representative council.

She was a woman of passion and strong opinions. She possessed real drive to help others. She wore many hats in her career in the caring professions, doing a social studies course in Edinburgh in 1960 and getting her medical social work diploma at the London School of Economics. She married and then spent 3 years in Malawi before moving to New York. She studied for a doctorate at Columbia University and had a job as a social worker at the Mount Sinai Hospital and was involved with the care of haemophiliacs.

She returned to Britain and spent the rest of her career in health-related executive and trustee posts. She was variously the chief executive of the British Deaf Association, the Faculty of Homeopathy & the Homeopathic Trust and for a short while, chair of the Oxford Mental Health Trust. She became involved with Progar (Project group on assisted reproduction) and successfully led its campaign for the right of children conceived with donated sperm to know their father's identity.

In 2004, she was made chair of the Long Term Conditions Alliance which represents many of the 17 million people with long-term illnesses, which post she held to the end of her life, steering the organisation through some very difficult times financially.

She is remembered as a powerful, determined campaigner. I remember her lists very well – things that just had to get done soon on a piece of paper for reference at meetings. I also remember her insistence on retrying a particular Ravioli at a Liga meeting in Italy. It was a long walk, but you couldn't say no to her. I met her again recently, serving on the Advisory Board Regulating Homeopathic Products of the governmental organisation checking that medical products are safe. For Homeopathy in Britain, her legacy is in the smooth-functioning of the current structure of the Faculty and most clearly in her welding together the two charitable organisations supporting medical homeopathy. She was instrumental and very active in helping the British Homeopathic Association and the Homeopathic Trust to unite under the banner of the British Homeopathic Association.

There was a memorial service for her in Oxford in May 2008 at which the BHA was represented by John Cook, chairman. She is survived by her sons, Daniel and Ben and five grandchildren.