My husband, David Taylor, who has died of cancer aged 78, missed out on a planned career in medicine but ended up making almost certainly a greater contribution to public health through research and policy development, latterly as professor of pharmaceutical and public health policy at University College London.
David had a rare ability to work with people of different professions and persuasions to achieve consensus without compromising his own values and goals. He was adept at popularising complex pharmaceutical issues and bridging the policy and industry worlds. An inspirational lecturer and mentor to research students, he was a passionate champion of marginalised groups.
Born in Kingston upon Thames, south-west London, David was the eldest son of Doris (nee Manser), a hospital pharmacist, and Edwin (Bill) Taylor, a research chemist. From an early age he was determined to become a doctor. While he was a pupil at Hertford grammar school (now Richard Hale school), however, the death of his father from lung cancer had a traumatic impact and led him instead to study sociology and economics at Bedford College, London, and the London School of Economics. He and I met as students and married in 1968.
His early-career jobs included a spell at the Office for Health Economics, where he researched and wrote on topics as diverse as learning disability, healthcare in low-income countries, and arthritis and rheumatism. Later, as associate director of health studies at the former Audit Commission, he researched and wrote a report on coronary heart disease, Dear to Our Hearts, which proved influential in shaping the NHS national service framework of 2000. In this role he also worked on quality management in the NHS.
In 2001 he was appointed professor of pharmaceutical and public health policy at UCL, a role in which he remained active until his cancer diagnosis in 2023. In this post he worked with leaders of the profession to broaden community pharmacy to take on a more clinical role. He inaugurated an annual lecture, held at the Royal Society, to bring together policymakers from all the health professions. These lectures will in future be held in his name.
Although David was modest about his achievements, he demonstrated leadership skills as chair from 2000 onwards of the former Camden and Islington NHS foundation trust. When his term at the trust ended in 2009, it was rated doubly excellent for quality and use of resources by the Care Quality Commission, and had received the best survey result of any London NHS trust for patient and service user satisfaction.
He enjoyed travelling and, when younger, was a keen cross-country runner. He had great joie de vivre and enthusiastically entered into any activity suggested by friends or family. Best of all for David, though, was conversation, whether with strangers or close friends, preferably over a good meal and a glass of wine.
David is survived by me, our children, Ann and Luke, our granddaughters, Amelia, Olivia and Penelope, and by his brother, Peter.
