Dr Hamish Barber

Barber was born in Dunfermline, the second son of Richard and Isabel Barber and christened James Hill Barber after his maternal grandfather, a doctor in Renfrew. Educated at Edinburgh Academy, he qualified in medicine at Edinburgh University in 1957. After five years in the RAF, he did obstetrics in Inverness before obtaining an assistant's post in general practice in Callander in 1964.

This could have been a job for life, but at this stage he discovered the thrill of carrying out original research, via an investigation of urinary tract infection, for which he was awarded the degree of MD by Edinburgh University.

This was a very unusual achievement for a young general practitioner, and it was no surprise in 1966 when he became the first general practitioner to be appointed to the Livingston Project - an experiment in which general practitioners divided their time between a hospital speciality in which they had expertise (in Barber's case, general medicine) and general practice.

On the first of several occasions in his career, he had to build up a new service from scratch, overcoming significant conflicting expectations of his two roles. In 1972, he was appointed senior lecturer in the organisation of medical care at Glasgow University, also acting as a consultant physician and consultant in epidemiology at Glasgow Royal Infirmary and at Ruchill Hospital.

The appointment was a huge challenge. Many colleagues in the university, and in general practice, were sceptical of what a general practitioner could offer in a university setting. But Barber had no difficulty in accepting and meeting the unprecedented challenge laid down by the Faculty of Medicine that his course would only be accepted if shown to be effective, as this philosophy underpinned all of his activities.

Although medical students had visited general practices as part of their training in Glasgow, the educational content of these visits tended to be haphazard. Barber developed new courses, whose clinical content was defined, so tutors could be briefed and teaching could be evaluated. His purpose was not to teach general practice, but to teach those aspects of clinical medicine, including personal and continuing care, which were best taught in a general practice setting.

As there was no textbook covering this ground, he wrote one, The Textbook of General Practice Medicine, with Andrew Boddy. With no resources for teaching, he had to recruit, maintain and expand a cadre of volunteer GP tutors. His course passed the test and was included in the medical curriculum. Within two years, funds had been obtained to establish a separate university department of general practice and the Norie Miller chair, endowed by the General Accident Insurance Group, for which Barber, with his ideas, energy and leadership, was the natural choice.

He was a true academic entrepreneur, building a portfolio of clinical trials funded by pharmaceutical companies, enabling him to increase his core staff to the critical level necessary for survival.

General practice teaching expanded to feature in every year of the course. His department was at the forefront of educational developments, such as problem-based learning, computer-assisted learning and a module-based MSc course in general practice, which are now commonplace. Based at Woodside Health Centre, which had opened in 1971 with a suite of rooms set aside for teaching, he was at the forefront of service developments in primary care, pioneering the team approach, with health visitors leading programmes of prevention for child care and care of the elderly.

At one time, half of the general practices in Scotland were using his Woodside child health record.

In a review of changing patterns of primary medical care in 1973, he was advocating all of the key policies included, over 30 years later, in Delivering for Health, the government's current statement of NHS priorities, including expanded nursing roles, integration of health and social care, closer working between general practitioners and hospital consultants and shifting from reactive to preventive patterns of care.

Many doctors remember his contribution to joint teaching sessions with hospital colleagues at the Royal Infirmary, and many careers were influenced as a result. He was a Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and the Hong Kong College of General Practitioners.

By the time Barber retired in 1993 after two decades at the helm, he had left a legacy from which new success was assured, and it was a pleasure to him that that has been the case. Five of his team (David Hannay, Stuart Murray, Frank Sullivan, Tim Usherwood and Jill Morrison) became professors of general practice.

Barber had a wide range of interests outside general practice. Following his early ambitions to be a marine architect, he became an expert model-boat builder, including the full range of Scottish fishing vessels, 10 of which are now on permanent display at the Scottish Fisheries Museum at Anstruther. He was also a mountaineer, yachtsman and cook.

He married Pat in 1958 and they had four children: Susan, Penny, Nicky and Colin. Pat died in 1980. He then married Marion in 1991, including her two sons Steve and Jonathan in a large family now containing 11 grandchildren. By Professors Graham Watt and John Howie