Claire Rayner OBE
Doctor of the University (HonDUniv)
Year conferred: 2000
Claire Rayner was best known as Britain's leading agony aunt. She enjoyed a long and successful career as a journalist, broadcaster and writer, but began her professional life training as a nurse at the Royal Northern Hospital in London. In the latter part of her life she was a vociferous campaigner on the subject of hospital hygiene and the need to stop the spread of MRSA and all other Hospital Acquired Infections.
In 2009 she was a member of the Prime Minister's Commission on the Future of Nursing and Midwifery.
She was a Vice-President of the British Humanist Association, a Distinguished Supporter of the Humanist Society of Scotland and an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society. She was also a prominent supporter of the British republican movement.
She was an Honorary Associate of the UK's National Secular Society. Rayner became a breast cancer activist at the age of 71 in order to promote the work of the charity Cancer Research UK. Claire sadly died in October 2010
