Anne Wadey is Head of Bereavement Advice Centre. She joined ITC to help with the development of Bereavement Advice Centre in 2007 following 18 years caring for bereaved families in the National Health Service. This has given her great insight into the needs of families after a death.
'It is a great privilege to be able to assist bereaved people, helping them understand what needs to do done and where to get any specialist services they may need. A death can lead to a bureaucratic maze and our role is to help people make sense of this.'
Prior to joining Bereavement Advice Centre, Anne managed the Bereavement Service in the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals, creating an infrastructure to give high quality and consistent service across all sites, having been part of the team responding to enquiries about retention of tissue following post-mortem examinations.
Her first role working with bereaved people was at St Mary's, London where she developed the role of Relatives Support Manager. This included support of families immediately after a death and support to professional colleagues to help them fulfil their statutory duties following a death. During this time she gained an understanding of the work of external agencies such as registrars, funeral directors and the coronial service and also contributed to the complaints and PALS services.
Anne began her career as a nurse and midwife, training and working in London as well as spending a year in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) as a missionary nurse and midwife.
A member of the Steering Committee of the Bereavement Services Association, Anne edits its twice yearly newsletter and has written the last two editions of the Which? Books What to do when someone dies (published by Which? Ltd, London, 2010, 2012).