Jean Lovell-davis
Activist who transformed the welfare of children in hospital
JEAN LOVELL-DAVIS, who has died aged 91, was one of the leaders of a drive to civilise the care of children in hospital.
Seventy years ago children faced long stays in hospital and parents had very restricted visiting rights and sometimes none. The feeling was that visits would upset the children, who would otherwise settle down and forget about home.
In 1953 and 1958 James and Joyce Robertson of the Tavistock Institute produced two films, A two-year-old goes to hospital and Going to hospital with mother. The first showed extreme separation anxiety and the second a much more contented and happy child.
In 1959 a government committee, chaired by Sir Harry Platt, recommended sweeping reforms including unrestricted visiting and children not being admitted to adult wards. Implementation was sluggish, however, and in 1961 an organisation largely made up of parents was founded which became the National Association for the Welfare of Children in Hospital. Jean Lovell-davis was appointed its director.
Local lobbying was essential but it was the production of a Charter for the Welfare of Children in Hospital which made the big difference. Single-minded, persuasive and charming, Jean Lovell-davis lobbied everyone whom she thought might help, and eventually the Charter was accepted across the NHS.
Nowadays children are admitted to hospital usually for very short periods but mothers expect to be able to stay and children’s wards are designed accordingly.
Jean Lovell-davis was once described in the Nursing Standard as having done more for children’s welfare than any other living person. She sat on Government committees and was an influential member of the Court Committee which reported in 1976 on the future of children’s health services.
She was a non-medical member of the Royal Society of Medicine, became the president of its Open Section, and was the first lay person to become its honorary secretary.
Jean Graham was born on September 17 1928 in Liverpool, the older of two children of Foster Graham, manager of a weighing machine company, and his wife Lilias, a milliner. Her younger brother Peter developed bone tuberculosis in childhood and spent three years in hospital, during which time the family could only visit once a month.
She attended Calder High School and gained a place at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, where she read Medieval French and met Peter Lovell-davis. They married in 1950 and moved to London, where she obtained a job at Common Ground Filmstrips as a picture researcher.
She loved children, and at the age of 40 completed postgraduate teacher training and taught remedial reading at a primary school in Haringey. She created a telephone information service called Children’s London and later produced and presented a children’s radio programme on LBC called Jellybone, with guests, music, and children phoning in with their jokes. During the 1970s she worked for the National Consumer Council.
Her husband, a publishing executive, was a close friend of Harold Wilson and helped to mastermind his three general election victories. Two years before Wilson stepped down Peter was raised to the peerage and became a Lord-in-waiting. Jean rarely used the title “Lady”, but she was a great support to her husband when he had to welcome foreign dignitaries on behalf of the Queen.
A lifelong member of the Labour Party, Jean Lovelldavis became a very good friend of Marcia (later Lady) Falkender, Wilson’s secretary.
She had a lifelong love of the theatre and in retirement took up painting. Her abiding passion was her garden, where even aged 90 she could still reel off the Latin names of all her plants.
Her husband died in 2001 and she is survived by their son and daughter.
Jean Lovell-davis, born September 17 1928, died March 31 2020