Sir Douglas Black

doi:10.1136/bmj.325.7365.661

BMJ 2002;325:661 ( 21 September )

Obituaries

Sir Douglas Black

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Professor of medicine whose famous report on inequality and health fell foul of the Thatcher government

Sir Douglas Black was one of medicine's most important and well loved individuals. His many achievements included a professorshipof medicine in Manchester, research on salt and water balance,persuading the profession in the 1940s and 1950s that the NHSwas a good thing, and the presidency of the Royal College of Physicians.But he is best known for his 1980 Black report, which spelt outthe social inequalities in health and proposed ways of reducingthem.

In 1977 the then Labour government's health secretary, David Ennals, chaired an expert committee investigating why the NHShad apparently failed to reduce social inequalities in health,and he commissioned Black to write a report. The result was published $---$ or,rather, suppressed $---$ in 1980, when the Conservatives had come topower. The Black report was not to Mrs Thatcher's liking . . . [Full text of this article]