Jess Phillips has told how her mum gave Andy Burnham his first job in politics – but never lived to see him lead the country.
The Labour MP’s mum was a top NHS boss but died aged 61 after being misdiagnosed with a rare cancer. Jess, who was 27 when her mother died, said she still thinks of the Prime Minister “as a 21-year-old lad who works for my mom and forgets his keys”.
In contrast, her 83-year-old father has a rare blood cancer but has been living well with it for over 30 years thanks to a series of treatment breakthroughs.
Jess says her family’s story shows the contrast between when the NHS gets it right, and when it goes wrong – as she opened up about the decades of life that her mum missed out on.
Labour’s champion of abused women and children told the Mirror how she and Andy Burnham both share fond memories of former NHS boss Jean Trainor, who she credits as her inspiration behind her own career in politics.
She said: “My mom gave Andy Burnham one of the first ever jobs he had in politics. He’s very misty eyed about my mother. She ran the NHS Confederation and he was the public affairs officer I think, almost straight out of university.
“So in my head Andy Burnham is a 21-year-old lad who works for my mom and forgets his keys.
“He was the same age as my older brothers and my mom would talk about him… I remember when he became the Health Secretary and she thought it was funny.
“I went to see him the other day and he was like ‘what would your mom think?’ I said ‘I think she would think it was funny that you’re Prime Minister’.”
Jean was the daughter of a dinner lady but rose through the ranks as an NHS administrator to take up roles running South Birmingham Mental Health Trust and then national trade body the NHS Confederation.
Before her death in 2010 from sarcoma – cancer of the soft tissue such as muscle and fat – Jean had been misdiagnosed as having deep vein thrombosis. She was only diagnosed with cancer by chance when it was flagged by an unrelated blood test while she was on holiday in France.
Jess said: “She was quite a senior woman in the health service and she was misdiagnosed for a year and a half. My mom knew how to advocate for herself. I just thought if my mom couldn’t get the right treatment and diagnosis, no-body can.
“The NHS was like a religion to my mom. She dedicated her whole life to trying to improve local services for people. ‘Don’t mourn – organise’. That’s what I was raised to think.”
Jean’s diagnosis was not the first time the family had to deal with such a shock. Her father Stewart Trainor – a school teacher and “rabble rousing socialist” – was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) in 1991 when Jess was just 11.
Jess said: “I remember like my dad, like coming home and sitting me down with my mum and saying, look, your dad’s been told that he’s got leukaemia. And I was immediately like ‘oh he’s going to die’. It was really traumatic.
“But my mum and dad really assured us that it was nothing for us to worry about. They said ‘by the time your dad gets ill, they will have come up with a way to deal with this’. We were banking on him not getting poorly for ten years and a belief that they will have come up with something to deal with it.
“On reflection, I think it was a thing my parents said to me as a child that at the time was a lie. I thought it’s alright. My dad’s gonna be okay because, like, you know, clever people are gonna do clever things. But the lie became true.”
In the 1970s only around one in ten people diagnosed with leukaemia survived for ten years whereas today that figure is almost one in two. Around 10,000 people are diagnosed with leukaemia and about 5,000 people die from it in the UK every year.
Stewart still lives with the type of blood cancer that affects white blood cells called lymphocytes that help the body fight off infections. For years after his diagnosis he was just monitored but has had periods in hospital over the years and has undergone chemotherapy.
However targeted treatments have been developed that specifically work on processes that CLL cancer cells rely on to survive and grow. It has meant chemotherapy – which affects the whole body and comes with gruelling side effects – can be used less.
Jess said: “Research into blood cancer is the reason I wasn’t an orphan at age 28. There is a really positive story to be told but that story is only because governments and organisations and charities invest in research. It’s not an accident of just a stroke of luck.”
Talking about her dad, she said: “The man is 83 and I literally just rang him and he was on the floor in the garden, filling up air holes in the bricks because he didn’t want mice in his house. So, he’s quite well. His health is good and he’s lived a long life. They’ve kept him alive.”
Jess, 44, has previously said “growing up with my father was like growing up with Jeremy Corbyn ” and admits they still debate and disagree on politics. She still lives in the area of Birmingham near where she grew up with her husband with whom she has two boys.
Jess initially worked at Women’s Aid helping victims of domestic abuse then after being elected to Birmingham City Council she was appointed as the victims’ champion, lobbying police and criminal justice organisations.
She has been the MP for Birmingham Yardley since 2015 and served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls for two years until resigning in May 2026.
During that time she was publicly smeared by the world ’s richest man Elon Musk – who called her a “rape genocide apologist” – during a period when he was making a series of ill-informed and divisive comments on British politics.
Jess said: “I can think of all the things my mum hasn’t seen in my life. I was 33 when I was elected to Parliament. My mum had died by then. That definitely made me throw myself into politics.
“There wasn’t enough research into the thing that killed my mum and there wasn’t enough awareness about diagnosis and how to spot it. She thought she had deep vein thrombosis but it was a massive cancer.”
Helen Rowntree, chief executive of Blood Cancer UK, said: “Survival for some blood cancers has improved dramatically over recent decades thanks to advances in research and treatment. We’ve seen enormous changes in how some blood cancers are treated.
“Those advances mean many more people are getting precious time to enjoy the ordinary and extraordinary moments that matter – weddings, birthdays and anniversaries, seeing children or grandchildren grow up, and simply making memories with the people they love.”
“But progress has not been equal across all blood cancers. We need continued investment in research to develop kinder, more effective treatments, particularly for those blood cancers where survival remains stubbornly low.”
*Jess Phillips is supporting Blood Cancer UK’s Here for This campaign, highlighting the missed moments due to blood cancer and the moments people have been able to enjoy thanks to research funding vital treatments. Visit bloodcancer.org.uk or call 0808 208 0888.