Sir Kenneth Stowe, who was Chairman of The Institute of Cancer Research, London, in the eighties and nineties, has died.
Sir Kenneth served as Principle Private Secretary to three Prime Ministers and was Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health and Social Security. While working in central Government, he was known for his work on health care reform and in 1989 he published an influential monograph On Caring for the National Health, under the Nuffield Trust.
Between 1987 and 1997, Sir Kenneth served as Trustee and Chairman of the ICR and Director of The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, and helped ensure that both institutions retained their status as national centres of excellence for cancer research and healthcare delivery.
He was a keen proponent of charity work and served as Trustee of other charities including the Carnegie UK Trust, the Cancer Research Campaign, CHASE Children’s Hospice and Cancer Research UK, where he was Chairman of the Nomination and Remuneration Committee.
In 2009, the ICR awarded him an honorary degree “for his incomparable service to healthcare and medical research, and in particular to the furtherance of cancer research”.
Our thoughts are with his family at this difficult time.