Dame Cicely Mary Strode Saunders (22 June 1918 – 14 July 2005) was an English nurse, social worker, physician and writer.

[3] After attending Roedean School (1932–37), Saunders began studying politics, philosophy, and economics at St Anne's College, Oxford in 1938.

[4] In 1948, Saunders fell in love with a patient, Ela Majer "David" Tasma, a Polish-Jewish refugee who, having escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto, worked as a waiter; he was dying of cancer.

[8] In the late 1940s, Saunders began working part-time at St Luke's Home for the Dying Poor in Bayswater, and it was partly this which, in 1951, led her to begin studying to become a physician.

[8] But she had already decided to set up her own hospice, serving cancer patients, and said that Michniewicz's death had shown her that "as the body becomes weaker, so the spirit becomes stronger".

[9] Saunders said that after 11 years of thinking about the project, she had drawn up a comprehensive plan and sought finance after reading Psalm 37: "Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass."

She succeeded in engaging the support of Albertine Winner, the deputy chief medical officer at the Ministry of Health at the time.

[8] The hospice was founded on the principles of combining teaching and clinical research, expert pain and symptom relief with holistic care to meet the physical, social, psychological and spiritual needs of its patients and those of their family and friends.

In a letter to the Secretary of State for Social Services, she stated, "we have strong reservations about the use of our existing inpatient facilities for AIDS patients", explaining in a memorandum to the Select Committee on Social Services: "A hospice ward is a very personal place, welcoming families, with their children, to be with the dying family member.

[17][18] In 1963, three years after the death of Michniewicz, Saunders became familiar with the paintings of Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, a Polish émigré and professor with a degree in fine art.

The charity has co-created the world's first purpose built institute of palliative care – the Cicely Saunders Institute, and supported research to improve the management of symptoms such as breathlessness,[19] action to meet more closely patient and family choice in palliative care and better support for older people.

Cicely Saunder's obituary in the Royal College of Physicians of London's Munk's Roll collection contains further information about her work with this organisation.

[28] She is the subject of a biography, Cicely Saunders: A Life and Legacy, published in 2018 to mark the 100th anniversary of her birth, and of the biographical novel Di cosa è fatta la speranza.