I am the Founder and Chair of the trustees of Horatio’s Garden charity. The award-winning national charity creates and manages beautifully designed garden projects in NHS spinal injury centres. Leading garden designers develop the stunning sanctuaries for patients and their family and friends, creating an environment which becomes an integral part of their lives and care whilst spending many months in hospital. The charity has six gardens open, with a further one in Belfast starting construction late 2022, and aims to bring garden projects to all the UK's 11 spinal injury centres. The charity was set up following the tragic death of my eldest son Horatio when he was 17 years old. Horatio had been a volunteer in the spinal injury centre and his ideas and patient research formed the principle objectives of the charity. Horatio’s life was cut short when his camp was attacked by a polar bear while on expedition in Svalbard in 2011 but his legacy continues to help patients and their families with the long process of learning to live with a spinal cord injury.I trained in medicine at St Thomas’s Hospital London, followed by postgraduate training at The Royal Free Hospital, London and I worked as a general practitioner until 2011. I served as a charity Board Director for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation until 2012. In 2017 I was awarded a Points of Light award by the prime minister for voluntary service and in 2019 my Salisbury volunteer group won the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service. I had the honour of being presented to Her Majesty the Queen at a reception for volunteers at Windsor Castle in 2019. I was an invitee at the Women of the Year Luncheon 2019 and in 2021 won the Royal Horticultural Society's Carew Pole Award. In 2023 Horatio's Garden won Gold at Chelsea Flower Show and Best in Show.