2026 Winner
JACK BLAIK
Jack and his late wife Nancy helped found children’s hospices which have been supporting seriously ill kids and their families for 30 years
Jack and Nancy’s son Daniel was the driving force behind their efforts to create a children’s hospice in Scotland.
Daniel was left profoundly disabled from a metabolic trauma caused by the rare degenerative condition Leigh’s Encephalopathy.
Due to the lack of hospice care in Scotland at the time, they had to take Daniel, who later passed away in 2009, to Martin House Children’s Hospice in Yorkshire, England.
In November 1991 a number of parents and professionals came together calling for a children’s hospice in Scotland. In 1992, this informal group became the charity CHAS and set a fundraising target of £10 million.
Together, the group worked hard to secure the funds needed to build the very first children’s hospice in Scotland, Rachel House, in Kinross, which opened its doors to children and families in 1996.
This was also thanks to the Daily Record which ran a hugely successful campaign and raised £4 million over 13 months. In 2005 Scotland’s second hospice Robin House in Balloch, Dunbartonshire, opened its doors.
Jack, 77, and Nancy, who was registered blind and affected dementia in later life which left her in a wheelchair, said they were proud that their work means nobody has to face the death of their child alone.
Nancy passed away in May last year, aged 88, but Jack has continued their mission and was made an OBE just before Nancy’s death.
He says: “Empathy is a value I have seen in abundance in the work and life of others. Since the 1970s, I have worked with many remarkable people who consistently put the needs of others before their own.’’