Ann Cartwright

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Ann Cartwright (b. 1925) is a statistician and socio-medical researcher, whose Institute for Social Studies in Medical Care, was launched by Michael Young, initially under the auspices of his Institute of Community Studies. She and her colleagues produced numerous books and readable reports for the Department of Health and for the general public on her studies which explored issues mainly around the use and perception of primary mediacl care in Britain. One such (Medicine Takers, Prescribers & Hoarders, 1972) was written with Karen Dunnell, now the UK's National Statistician. Others included Patients & their doctors (1967), Parent & family planning services (1970), Life Before Death (1973, with Hockey & Anderson and The Role of Residential and Nursing Homes in the Last Year of People's Lives (1988). The lucidity of Ann's books, mixing straightforward statistics with illustrative adecdotes and quotes, made them influential with policy-makers.

Cartwright retired in 1993 and the Institute was subsequently disbanded. Still found walking and swimming on Hampstead Heath, her work lives on through her many acolytes who continue to contibute to social studies in medical care.