Better Health For All

Remembering Dr Maurice William Beaver, MB, BSc, DPH, FFPH, FRSPH (24 July 1930 –
23 April 2018)

Maurice was brought up in London and Cornwall during the war, and educated at Ilford County High School for Boys. In 1949, he went to study medicine at University College Hospital Medical School in London. After graduation, he served as a Junior House Officer with a consultant surgeon in Portsmouth and at the Scott Isolation Hospital for Infectious diseases in Plymouth, where he acquired experience in general and genito-urinary medicine.

Having qualified as a Doctor in 1955, National Service took Maurice overseas to serve as a Captain, in the Army Medical Corp in Malaya. He enjoyed his time there, as doctor to a British Army regiment, an Australian Army regiment and a Gurkha regiment – particularly his work supporting the Gurkha soldiers and their families.

On returning to the UK in 1957, Maurice secured a post as a House Officer in the department of obstetrics, gynaecology and genito-urinary medicine at King’s Lynn General Hospital in Norfolk, where he met his wife, Marian Pollyn, a midwifery sister. Originally, he planned to take up a further commission in the Army Medical Corp and thereafter to become a GP in Cornwall, but unfortunately in 1958, Maurice was diagnosed with TB, probably contracted in Malaya, and, after major lung surgery, he had to make significant changes to his career plans.

In 1959, Maurice went to the School of Public Health in London to study for a Diploma in Public Health, which enabled him to pursue a career as an epidemiologist and public health practitioner, initially for various County Councils and latterly for the National Health Service.

Maurice’s first post in Public Health was in Northampton, where he specialised in paediatric mental health and was very well-liked by doctors and children alike. In 1963, he accepted a post as Senior Assistant Medical Officer for the County of Norfolk. Then, in 1968, Maurice secured a post as Deputy County Medical Officer of Health for Nottinghamshire. In 1974, he was promoted again to the role of Area Medical Health Officer for South Yorkshire, where he made a significant contribution to the region’s public health services, including oversee-ing the opening of a new general hospital in Barnsley.

In 1979, Maurice’s career moved him back in Nottingham as Special Adviser for the East Midlands and Senior lecturer in Public Medicine at the University Medical School. This was the stage in his career he enjoyed the most, using his public health expertise to mentor students in their studies and research. Around this time, he was appointed Editor of the UK’s Public Health Journal – a post he held well into retirement, such was his ability to keep his medical knowledge current. Overseas, he was invited to participate in several academic fora as a special adviser to the World Health Organisation and to ASPHER, the international association for public health bodies. He travelled widely as an international consultant, (including assignments in Padua, Italy and for the Greek Government in Athens). He gave papers and participated in conferences, which he found particularly rewarding.

In the late 1980’s, Maurice’s role in Nottingham incorporated Director of Public Health Information and Computer Services, with responsibility for building a team to pilot the use of information technology in the NHS. In the last years of his career, Maurice became Director of Public Health for Nottinghamshire, where he was considered a wise counsellor and adviser by the Chairman of the Nottingham Health Authority Trust.
During his long career, Maurice published research into many areas of public health. His research on cardiac disease in Norfolk firemen subsequently led to the force adopting recommendations for important changes in shift management, stress reduction, diet and exercise. He produced a paper on “Milk and Infant Mortality” that updated advice on child nutrition. During the BSE crisis, he produced another on “Government Responsibility for Public Health Information to the Public” that set the standards in this area for the future. In policymaking, Maurice introduced the breast screening programme for women in Nottingham, and he made changes that ensured better provision for mental health for children and adults, and reforms within mental health institutions.

Maurice was a man of considerable intellectual capacity, a doctor with the culture and interests of a scientist, a classicist and a natural historian. He never lost his enquiring mind and the habit of continual learning. As an epidemiologist, he produced research and designed policy that contributed significantly to improvements in public health provision in this country and overseas. As a manager and teacher, he also had a deep insight into what made people well and happy at work – using that insight in his coaching and encouragement of his colleagues, students and friends in their personal development

Former colleagues describe Maurice as “a wonderful and inspirational leader”, who was always interested in the lives, experiences and views of others; “a friend who always had sound advice”; that he had “what is best in Doctors – a scientific approach combined with his love and knowledge of classics and art”; “a man of great wisdom and humour”; “an encouraging and challenging boss”, who “created a department that was exciting to work in, where ideas flowed and where people listened to each other”. Students described him as an “inspiring teacher” with a “door that was always open for practical advice and support based on his “real-world experience”, coupled with philosophical insights and a welcoming smile”. Finally, that he was “a blessing in my life as a mentor and a friend”; someone “who will always be remembered with great affection by all those who knew him”; and “who was a fair and clever colleague whose like will be rarely seen again”.

Maurice leaves his widow, Marian, his three daughters, and his three grand-daughters.

Written by Rosemary Beaver, one of Maurice’s three daughters.