Claire Rayner is a well-known journalist, novelist and broadcaster (radio and TV). As a trained nurse and midwife she is an acknowledged authority on child care, medical and allied subjects, whose widely-read health education articles in a wide range of journals and also problem pages have attracted hundreds of thousands of letters over the past 40 years or so.

She is the author of over 90 books, including a broad range of medical subjects ranging from sex education for children and adults through to home nursing, family health and baby and childcare, as well as successful and highly popular fiction. Most of these titles have been translated into a number of languages and have been published world-wide.

Claire has been broadcast in several of her own radio and TV series of programmes as well as being a consistent contributor to a larger number of other programmes nationwide. As a journalist she has regularly contributed to national newspapers, women’s and general magazines and medical journals.

Her other commitments have included, amongst others, associate non-executive director of the Royal London Group of Hospitals, and of Northwick Park and St Mark’s Hospital NHS Trust, member of the Royal College of Nursing Committee on Ethics; member of the Royal Commission on the Funding of Care of the Elderly; Chair of the Health Advisory Group for Holloway Prison; President of Gingerbread and also of the National Association of Bereavement Counsellors; President of the Patients’ Association; and Patron and advisor to a larger number of medical and social welfare organisations.

"When the British Thyroid Foundation asked me to become a patron I have to say I went into an acute déjà vu mode. I’m now in my 70s, but fifty years ago I became ill with acute thyrotoxicosis - Graves’ Disease, which was a very cheering label for it! I remember how long it took for me to get a diagnosis, how long it was assumed that I was just being tiresome because I was so restless and so greedy because I was so hungry all the time, and lazy because I had a tendency to fall suddenly asleep in the middle of the day. That was partly because, of course, I couldn’t sleep at night!

Anyway, enough of my own symptoms – suffice it to say that I eventually was treated successfully with a thyroidectomy which, undoubtedly, saved my twenty-year old life. With that history, how could I not accept an invitation to become a Patron of the British Thyroid Foundation? If they can help other young people – or indeed people of any age! – to cope with this unpleasant condition – and it’s just as unpleasant if you have a shortage of thyroid hormone rather than an excess as I did – then I want to do what little I can to help. But I hope other people will see them as well worthy of support as I do."

Claire Rayner, OBE