Sir Gerard Vaughan
Authors: T. Bullamore
Journal: BMJ (2003)

Sir Gerard Vaughan was one of only a handful of doctors to have ever served the government at ministerial level: he was former prime minister Margaret Thatcher's health minister from 1979 to 1982. In later years, as consumer affairs minister from 1982 to 1983, and on the backbenches, he was alarmed to discover how little weight the professional views of medical MPs carried. When once he volunteered to sit on a health committee, he was discouraged by the whips, who claimed “it would not be popular.”




Figure 1



Credit: UPPA/TOPFOTO




For Vaughan, the nature of his calling sat uncomfortably alongside his right wing credentials. His support for people affected by thalidomide, his concern for people with AIDS, and his calls for free eye and dental checks all contrasted sharply with, say, his maiden speech, which supported prescription charges and the end of free school milk. He was also in favour of the contraceptive pill being available to children under 16.

Vaughan was determined to cut what he saw as the waste and extravagance of the NHS, and in 1979 undertook a round of reorganisation that purported to save in the region of £30m. But he was sometimes too eager to please. He was reportedly persuaded by Denis Thatcher not to outlaw tobacco advertising because of the damage that such a ban would do to the sports industry.

In 1980 the Sunday Mirror attacked Vaughan for what it called “the great kidney machine scandal,” a lack of funding for dialysis machines. He promptly wrote to the paper asking its readers to “help foot the bill,” by sending in contributions. Although the paper decried his response as “a cheap cynical gimmick,” on that occasion Vaughan undoubtedly emerged with the upper hand.

His nemesis came in the form of Joan Ruddock, who chaired the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, who was also the boss of his local Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) and later to be a Labour MP. Describing the bureau as a covert left wing organisation, Vaughan—who had succeeded Sally Oppenheimer as consumer affairs minister in 1982—proposed to reduce by half the CAB's government grant. The subsequent uproar from thousands of voluntary workers and their often Conservative MPs left Vaughan with little option but to retreat during a heated Commons debate. It was an expensive mistake: to prove its good intentions the Government eventually coughed up 50% more in funds for the CAB.

Gerard Folliott Vaughan was the son of a Royal Air Force officer, who was killed during the war. He was born in Xinavane, in Portuguese East Africa, and educated privately there. He studied at London University and went on to Guy's Hospital and Maudsley Hospital, where he obtained his diploma in psychological medicine. As a consultant he was in charge of the Bloomfield Clinic at Guy's from 1958 to 1979.

He became involved in politics in the mid-1950s, initially as an alderman on the London County Council. He stood at Poplar, east London, in the 1955 general election before taking Reading from Labour in 1970, the year that brought Ted Heath to Downing Street. He subsequently represented Reading South (1974-83) and Reading East (1983-97).

Vaughan first brought his health background into his political life in 1974. With the Tories in opposition, he was founder and president of the Conservative Medical Society with the aim of basing the NHS on “total insurance cover” rather than taxation. When Mrs Thatcher became party leader in 1975, Vaughan became her health spokesman; and when she became prime minister in 1979, he was appointed health minister, initially under Patrick Jenkin and later under Norman Fowler.

After his disastrous swipe at the CAB, Vaughan was dropped from the government in 1983 with the then customary knighthood following in 1984. He served on the education select committee from 1983 to 1993, and the science and technology committee from 1993 to 1997. In his constituency he did battle in 1988 with Nicholas Ridley, who was determined to add yet more housing to Berkshire's diminishing green belt.

Ideologically, Vaughan was a man well to the right of the Conservative Party. He considered women to be poor debaters, claiming the Commons was “probably for men”; he criticised the “low standard” of Commonwealth doctors in the NHS and condemned the abuse of the system by foreigners; he led a delegation to the then speaker, Betty Boothroyd, demanding that she stop the Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams using a room in the Palace of Westminster to launch his autobiography; and he notoriously said: “I don't accept homosexuality as a normal kind of behaviour.”

While at Guy's, Vaughan had specialised in community affairs and social medicine. He was also a proponent of homoeopathy. As health minister he had prevented the closure of several wards at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, and later served as patron of the British Homeopathic Association.

He leaves a wife, Joyce Thurle, whom he married in 1955, and a son and daughter.

Sir Gerard Folliott Vaughan, health minister 1979-82, and consultant psychiatrist Guy's Hospital 1958-79 (b 1923; q Guy's Hospital, London, 1947; DPM, FRCP, FRCPsych), d 29 July 2003.