Peter Ransley obituary

Wed, 18 Feb 2026

Screenwriter and novelist who co-founded a charity to support those affected by avoidable harm in healthcare

Peter Ransley, who has died of bronchopneumonia aged 94, wrote television plays and series focusing on human emotions and experiences at the centre of the dramas, from the taut thriller The Price, starring Peter Barkworth as a business executive whose wife and stepdaughter are kidnapped by the IRA, to The Cry, with Sarah Lancashire as a grieving mother who steals a child she believes is being abused.

Viewers’ own emotions, often torn to shreds by the chilling realism of Ransley’s writing, were demonstrated in a different way following the screening of Minor Complications, his 1980 BBC Play for Today. It was based on a real-life case of medical negligence involving a woman who underwent routine sterilisation and her fight for compensation after the acute pain she subsequently suffered – due to a punctured bowel during the operation – was misdiagnosed.