Cancer campaigner and doctor Kate Granger dies aged 34 on 11th wedding anniversary

Dr Kate Granger, the cancer sufferer who initiated the #HelloMyNameIs campaign to raise awareness of cancer patients, has died at the age of 34, her husband Chris Pointon has announced. Dr Granger, from Wakefield, who learned she had a rare but incurable cancer aged 29, qualified as a consultant gerontologist and completed a bucket list of activities including sky-diving and having a tattoo as well as raising hundreds of thousands of pounds for cancer awareness.

Dr Granger died at St Gemma's Hospice in Leeds on her 11th wedding anniversary. Husband Chris Tweeted: "Peacefully & surrounded by loved ones @grangerkate passed away yesterday. RIP my soul mate & TY. Love u 4ever…" Three days earlier she had reached a £250,000 fundraising target for Yorkshire Cancer Centre.

When she was told her cancer had spread, Dr Granger wrote, the doctor who told her did not introduce themselves and did not look her in the eye, an experience she found dehumanising. The idea for the #HelloMyNameIs campaign came when Dr Granger was being treated in hospital. Frustrated with being referred to as "the girl with cancer" or "bed number 7" she set out to change the way hospital staff viewed their patients.

Backed by 400,000 NHS professionals the #HelloMyNameIs campaign has been rolled out to 120 NHS hospitals and in 100 countries, and is incorporated in standard medical training. Dr Granger received an MBE for her campaign in 2015. Under another hashtag, #deathbedlive, Dr Granger tweeted about her experience of dying in a bid to take the stigma and mystery out of the process.

A few weeks before she died Dr Granger said in an interview with The Telegraph: "If I dropped dead tomorrow, I wouldn't be unhappy with the life I've managed to achieve in the last five years. I've managed to create some amazing legacies. All doctors want to leave their mark, and I think I've managed to do that. I think through it all I have found a strength I never knew I had."