Innovations in End-of-Life Care
an international journal of leaders in end-of-life care

Alison Ryan was educated at Oxford University in the 1970s, reading Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. As a student she became involved in the disability movement, working as a volunteer in the United Kingdom (UK) and in Europe. After leaving Oxford, she worked initially in the UK civil nuclear industry as an economist.

In 1983 Alison met her future husband Ian, a musician with complex health and disability problems stemming from severe haemophilia. She decided to change track and in 1985 became the chief executive of Horticultural Therapy, a not-for-profit organization, working in therapeutic horticulture to benefit people with all kinds of special needs throughout the UK. At that same time, she married Ian and became the carer of his mother, who had severe dementia and lived with the two of them. Ian's mother moved into a nursing home in 1990 and died in 1992. In those days the concept of carers was relatively unknown and no help was available to support those who were looking after people with such demanding care needs at home. Alison was an early member of the Carers National Association, which started to lobby for improvements to this situation.

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