Rachel's Story

Rachel Ball died in August 2025. She was only 47.
Her death was not inevitable. It was the result of years of missed opportunities — signs that were there in plain sight, but never joined together.

From childhood, Rachel lived with several health challenges, including asthma, massive urticaria and recurring skin lesions.

In 2006, Rachel was diagnosed with her first ovarian cancer. She was still young, and while her care was appropriate for the time, there was no referral for genetic assessment. The key moment came in 2012, when a second ovarian cancer and multiple liver hamartomas were discovered — clear indicators of an inherited syndrome.

This was the point at which a referral to clinical genetics should have been made. Early identification could have changed the course of her care.

By 2019, after more than a decade of fragmented treatment, Rachel was diagnosed with breast cancer. Only then was a referral finally made. Cowden Syndrome was confirmed. But by this stage, the damage was already done.

Surveillance was started for some organs, but still not for others — including her liver, the very place her cancer would later return. In 2024, Rachel developed advanced breast cancer recurrence with liver metastases. It was treatable, but not curable. Less than a year later, she was gone.

Rachel did everything right. She attended every appointment, followed every piece of advice, and even chose preventative surgery to reduce her risk of further cancers. She trusted the system completely. But the system was not joined up.

At every stage, she was seen by good people working within a structure that divided her symptoms into separate boxes — each specialist treating their own part, without anyone responsible for looking at the whole picture.

Rachel’s story is the reason for this campaign.

Read the full story

Rachel’s story, and the patient safety lessons behind it, are told in full in my memoir:

Rachel’s Rule: Signs in Plain Sight