My father, Norman Beenstock, who has died aged 92, was a GP at the Clarendon House practice in Hyde, Greater Manchester, from its opening in 1968 until his retirement in 1993.
The Clarendon practice was one of the first in the UK to bring GPs and nurses together under one roof, and Norman was proud of the pioneering work he and his colleagues undertook there. He learned Italian so that he could better communicate with patients newly arrived in Hyde from Italy, and was an early adopter of the concept of clinical audit, which focuses on whether healthcare is being provided in line with best practice standards, while also looking for improvements.
In 1969 he became a tutor for the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and over the next 20 years, while continuing to work for the practice, occupied various educational roles for that body, including as an examiner. He held the ceremonial post of provost of the RCGP’s north west of England faculty in 1988.
Norman was born in Cheetham Hill, north Manchester, to Isaac, a raincoat manufacturer, and his wife, Fanny (nee Brown), a housewife. At Stand grammar School in Whitefield he revealed an early interest in all things medical, and he went on to read medicine at Manchester University.
Qualifying in 1955, he did paediatric training at Park hospital and Booth Hall children’s hospital in Manchester and obstetric and gynaecology training at North Middlesex hospital in London, before beginning work as a GP in 1959 at a practice in east Manchester.
Nine years later – with Sidney Fink and other GPs – he became a founding member of the Clarendon House practice, remaining there for the rest of his career. It was a stable group except for one GP, Harold Shipman, who left to work independently, for reasons which sadly become clear many years later. Norman gave evidence to the Shipman inquiry in 2002, and called for reform of the law on the issuing of death certificates.
Norman was a reserved and shy man who took particular interest in the care of bereaved people. Perhaps this was not surprising given his own early experience of bereavement: as a teenager, on his return from a holiday with friends, he discovered that his older brother, Cyril, had been killed in a plane crash. It was a source of such shock and sadness that he was never able to discuss it.
An enthusiastic squash player until creaky knees put an end to that energetic sport, Norman then took up tennis and played every week with friends. He was a keen walker with our beloved collie, and continued to learn new things, such as bridge. He carried on studying Italian, always took an interest in medical science, and was working in the garden until a few days before he died.
He is survived by his wife, Rhona (nee Levy), a medical social worker whom he married in 1962, his children, Jane and me, and grandchildren, Joe, Laura and Dan.
