Identity area
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Authorized form of name
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Description area
Dates of existence
History
Alastair Nelson qualified MB, ChB from Edinburgh Medical School in 1947, and took the Diploma in Public Health in 1951, studying under FAE Crew, a luminary of the postwar movement in social medicine. He became Medical Officer of Health, Stourbridge, then Deputy MOH, Brighton, and Deputy Chief MOH for Middlesex, which was then the third largest health authority in the UK. Reorganisations of local government and of the Health Service made him successively MOH, Richmond, and Area Medical Officer, Richmond Health Authority, and he finally served as Director of Public Health at Kingston and Esher Health Authority before retiring in 1989.
As Chairman and later President of the Society of Medical Officers of Health, he steered through structural changes to preapre the Society for the 1974 Health Service reorganisation and the foundation of the Faculty of Community Medicine. He was active in the Faculty and in the South West Thames Committee for Community Medicine, edited the 'Handbook of Community Medicine, and represented the public health interest on nursing bodies.
Other interests included firat aid and accident prevention, and medical ethics: from 1982 he convened informal meetings to discuss the latter, from which grew the 'Human Values in Health Care' discussions.