‘Pioneering health expert Mansel Aylward overjoyed at knighthood’
Apr 14 2010 by Madeleine Brindley, South Wales Echo
A PIONEERING South Wales health expert has been knighted by the Queen in recognition of a lifetime of service.
Mansel Aylward received the honour at Windsor Castle after being named in the New Year’s Honours.
Sir Mansel, chairman of Public Health Wales, is one of only a few people to receive a knighthood after previously being made a Companion of the Order of the Bath.
“I owe a very considerable debt to my family, to colleagues at Public Health Wales and Cardiff University and to all those people in my life who have nurtured and supported me without whom I would not have gained the knighthood.
“I am so very grateful and delighted, especially that this honour marks a contribution to health and healthcare in Wales.”
Sir Mansel, who grew up in the poverty of the 1950s in Merthyr Tydfil, is also the director of the Centre for Psychosocial and Disability Research at Cardiff University.
And he is the architect of plans to create Wales’ first health park, which would bring primary healthcare, social services and citizen’s advice under one roof, in Merthyr Tydfil.
Much of Sir Mansel’s life’s work has been inspired by the town in which he was born and still lives. His own research includes the factors which pose obstacles to recovery in Wales, public beliefs about illness and disability and the relations between work and health.
Many of the research projects, in Wales and elsewhere, aim to develop practical public health interventions.
Sir Mansel was formerly the chief medical adviser, medical director and chief scientist to the Department for Work and Pensions.
He was also chief medical adviser and head of profession at the Veterans’ Agency, Ministry of Defence. In 2001 he was appointed as the Royal Society of Medicine’s academic sub dean for Wales.
Sir Mansel trained as a physician and specialised in rheumatology, rehabilitation, therapeutics and clinical pharmacology.
He has played a key role in the development of the UK’s medical assessment for incapacity – the all-work test – the personal capability assessment and the “pathways to work” initiative for vocational rehabilitation.
It was for this work that he was made a Companion of the Bath – an order of knighthood – in the Queen’s Jubilee Birthday Honours List in 2002.
Knighted. 32 sick/disabled PEOPLE, on average, die every week after having been declared, by Atos and the DWP, “fit for work” on the basis of his biopsychosocial model of disability denial. IDS et al have adopted this false science to decrease disability benefits. Our paralympians? Without their DLA etc won’t be able to GET to training, let alone garner sponsorship for their highly expensive, specialised equipment. Oh. And their food….roof over their heads etc etc. And all because SIR Mansel concocted this abomination of a pseudoscientific model….and this abomination of a “government” (non-elected and without mandate) has chosen to implement it to cut their budget.
Maybe chasing tax avoiders/evaders would give the treasury excess funds……oh….but….this Tory millionaires row have PAID OFF HMRC officers. I wonder why.
Your right this so called government is unelected, which means that a lot of people did not want these tory money grabbing B*****ds in power, they should not be allowed to continue in office a moment longer they are responsible for the deaths of many people. We should have a general strike now, but would all the British workers stick together, Hmmm, I doubt it very much too many mortgages to pay I guess.
When Thatcher gave the right to the workers to buy their council houses she knew exactly what she was doing. Give them a mill stone around their necks then they will never be able to strike as they have to pay their mortgages every month.
ODIN anyone who bought their council houses when thatcher was in power their house would have been paid in full years ago…with no mortgage…so no milestone around their necks…
Yes you are right Barbara, but you did not understand what was meant, I was talking about the 1980’s and 90’s as an example. Thatcher was the one who used that ploy to put people in debt so that the Tories could smash the unions. No one with a mortgage then or now would want to strike, would they? People may have thought that the government was doing them a favour then, but were they?
Many people who started to buy their homes under Thatcher lost their homes because they lost their jobs and had their homes repossessed through no fault of their own, a bit like the disabled being witch hunted because they became sick through no fault of their own. People are afraid to strike as a way to stop this evil government for the same reasons now as then, if they can actually afford a home at all these days that is. Now do you understand what was meant? Did you buy your council house in the 80’s and the 90’s? Just a thought