Cyril Taylor (doctor)

Dr Cyril Taylor (born 9 March 1921, died 11 December 2000) was a General Practitioner in Liverpool. He pioneered the concept of NHS health centres to serve the widest interests of local people.

He was brought up in a Jewish family at New Brighton. He was active in the Jewish Youth Movement but moved from zionism towards socialism in his late teens. He was educated at Wallasey Grammar School where he joined the Communist Party of Great Britain. In 1946 he met Nye Bevan, then preparing to establish the NHS, to urge him to resist the demands of the medical establishment. He went on to study medicine at Liverpool University, where he was famous for eating sandwiches during dissection lectures. He worked as a student treating survivors of Dunkirk at the Alderhay medical receiving centre. His first job was at Walton hospital. He then did his national service, during which he became major in charge of the British hospital in Khartoum.^[1]

In 1949, he went to work as medical officer with the Liverpool Shipping Federation but was sacked because of his politics. Though the British Medical Association protested, he did not get his job back. So, in 1950, he set up shop at his house in Liverpool, where he practised, singlehandedly, as a GP. He left the Communist Party after the Hungarian uprising of 1956. In 1977 he moved into the Princes Park health centre, in Toxteth where his patients included Adrian Henri and Alexei Sayle.

He was elected as a Labour councillor for Liverpool's Granby ward in 1965 and was chair of Liverpool City Council's social services committee between 1970-80.

In 1977 he was appointed a member of the Royal Commission on the National Health Service.

He was president of the Socialist Health Association.^[2]

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