RAF to hospice care

ellenor has welcomed Steve Beaumont as its new Director of Care & Quality, bringing more than three decades of leadership experience across the NHS, the Royal Air Force and international healthcare.

Just a few weeks into the role, Steve says his focus is clear: supporting staff to deliver safe, compassionate care while helping more people understand what modern hospice care really means.

ellenor provides specialist hospice care for people with life-limiting illness, and their families across North Kent and Bexley, supporting around 3,000 patients and their families each year. The charity is rated Outstanding by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), recognising the quality, safety and compassion of its clinical care.

While ellenor has an inpatient ward at its hospice in Gravesend, much of its work takes place beyond the building.

“Our teams support patients in their own homes, in care homes and across the community,” Steve explains. “The inpatient ward is there when specialist care is needed, but much of hospice care today happens where people feel most comfortable – at home, in care homes and across the community, surrounded by the people who matter most.

For Steve, helping more people understand this is important.

“Many people still think hospice care is only about the very end of life,” he says. “In reality it is specialist support for people living with life-limiting illness helping manage symptoms, supporting families and enabling people to live as well as possible for as long as possible.”

Steve’s career in healthcare spans more than three decades and began in the NHS, where he trained as a nurse before joining Princess Mary’s Royal Air Force Nursing Service as a commissioned officer. He went on to serve for more than 20 years in the RAF in a range of clinical and leadership roles, working across the UK and overseas. His experience included supporting injured servicemen and civilians in complex environments and later becoming Commanding Officer at Headley Court, the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre, overseeing the rehabilitation of military personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with life-changing injuries.
The experience shaped his leadership philosophy and belief in teamwork.

“People sometimes assume that because you have worked in the military you will be an autocratic leader,” he says. “But my experience taught me the opposite. In those environments you rely completely on the people around you. You trust each other, you value each other and everyone’s role matters.”

After leaving the RAF, Steve moved into senior leadership roles within the NHS, including serving as Chief Nurse at West Kent Clinical Commissioning Group. He later spent several years working internationally as an Executive Director of Nursing in Qatar.

Alongside his clinical leadership career, Steve has also developed a strong academic foundation, completing a PhD while working full time and developing particular interests in nurse competence, quality and research-informed practice.

For Steve, research is not about titles but about curiosity.

“It’s about asking questions and making sure our decisions are informed by evidence as well as experience,” he says.

Before joining ellenor, Steve held an interim leadership role at another hospice, giving him his first direct experience of the sector. What stood out most was the ability of hospice teams to focus not only on the patient, but on the whole person and their family.

“A hospice is a place where people can feel safe and supported at a very difficult time,” he says. “But it’s also about the specialist expertise of our teams – managing complex symptoms, ensuring the right medications are in place, supporting families and working alongside other health professionals so people receive the right care, particularly as they approach the end of life.”

Maintaining the high standards recognised by ellenor’s Outstanding CQC rating is something Steve says is central to his role.

“My aim is to support staff so they can give the very best care to our patients and families,” he says. “A lot of excellent care comes down to the basics – how we communicate, how we listen and how we treat people.”

Working closely with NHS colleagues, community teams, hospitals and care homes will also be an important part of how ellenor continues to support patients across the region.

“I would like ellenor to be a place people turn to for advice and support,” he says. “Not only patients and families, but health and care professionals as well. We have specialist knowledge and experience here and sharing that expertise is really important.”

Hospice work can be emotionally demanding, and Steve believes supporting staff is essential to delivering the best care.

“My role is to help create an environment where staff feel valued and supported,” he says. “When teams feel confident and supported, that directly benefits the patients and families we care for.”

As a charity, ellenor relies on community support alongside NHS funding to provide specialist hospice care across North Kent and Bexley. Each year the organisation must raise £9.7million to continue providing its services.

Although still early in his time at ellenor, Steve says he has already seen the dedication of staff and volunteers and the warm welcome they extend to everyone who walks through the doors.

“It’s clear there is a huge amount of commitment and pride among the staff and volunteers who make ellenor what it is,” he says.

After a career spanning military medicine, the NHS and international healthcare, he says he is now at a stage where he wants to share his experience in ways that support colleagues and improve care for patients and families.

“My ambition is simple,” he says. “To support our teams so that every patient and family we care for receives the very best support possible.