Dame Laura Lee qualified as a Registered General Nurse in 1987 and later gained an MSc in Clinical Oncology. While working as a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Edinburgh, she met and treated Maggie Keswick Jencks, who believed that people with cancer needed somewhere uplifting and homely to go to for support and advice. During her last months, Jencks forged plans to create the first Maggie’s centre, which opened at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh in 1996. Lee left the NHS to become Maggie’s Chief Executive and has since seen 24 centres open across the UK, plus three abroad. In 2019, she was made a Dame for her services to people with cancer.