Fearless consultant physician and scourge of PFI dies

Died: April 18, 2025
Matthew Dunnigan, who has died aged 93, was a consultant physician at Stobhill Hospital for 27 years who distinguished himself, both in his studies on delivery of health care, and in the clinical arena.
When health leaders in Glasgow were planning a reduction in acute bed numbers in the 1990s, Dr Dunnigan forensically analysed the planning models and showed the health board's plans would not cope with an increasingly frail and elderly population. Sadly, his detailed analysis was repeatedly ignored with the resultant consequences we are all living with today.
The late 1990s was a period of major hospital closures and the building of new hospitals under the exorbitant Private Finance Initiative (PFI) throughout the UK. All of these schemes entailed selling off NHS land and hospitals with major reductions in beds.
Dr Dunnigan extended his forensic analysis of bed planning to Lothian Health Board's plans for the New Edinburgh Royal and many of the new PFI hospital plans in England. He exposed the flawed assumptions regarding bed provisions and in every case the evidence was ignored by the policy makers. His analysis, unlike those of the NHS bed planners, has stood the test of time – the UK now has the lowest hospital bed numbers of all the countries in Europe.
Dr Dunnigan's academic curiosity was also in evidence in the clinical arena where he also distinguished himself. Arguably the most meritorious was his work with severely physically and mentally disabled patients in the long-since-closed Lennox Castle Hospital in the 1980s.
Read more
Dr Dunnigan's attention was drawn to this by observing dehydration in patients being admitted to Stobhill Hospital from Lennox Castle. He suspected that these patients were not being fed adequately. He therefore looked at the intake of the inpatients at that institution and demonstrated severe caloric and nutritional deficiencies, especially in those who were unable to feed themselves.
Correction of this led to the patients gaining weight and being more settled and easier to look after. His findings were eventually accepted by the health board who agreed to provide more staff and better nutrition for the patients.
Dr Dunnigan was also involved in a study looking at the high incidence of rickets in the recently arrived Asian children to Glasgow in the 1960s. In their homeland, the sun provided all the Vitamin D they required but this was not the case in Glasgow's tenement blocks.
Having identified the problem, Dr Dunnigan arranged to have Vitamin D inserted into the flour used to make chapattis, and the rickets all but disappeared. He continued to conduct studies and write about Vitamin D deficiency in South Asians for two decades.
Dr Dunnigan contributed in a number of other clinical areas including unexplained fluid retention in women and Dunnigan's Syndrome which described a rare type of genetic lipid disorder.
Matthew Dunnigan was born in 1931 to what he described as poor but honest parents in a steel house in Clydebank. Matthew continued: 'my parents were both keen on self-improvement, evening classes and 'getting on'.'
His mother taught primary classes of 50-60 children as a 19-year-old until marriage prevented her from continuing. His father, who left school at 15, was self-educated and became a cost accountant.
As a young child Matthew suffered from scarlet fever, which then was a life-threatening illness. This necessitated several months in hospital without any contact with his family. Perversely, this experience was to be repeated in the last years of his life through Covid.
The family moved to Troon during the Second World War and Dr Dunnigan attended Marr College where he was Dux. He entered Glasgow University to study medicine, graduating in 1955. After completing his national service, he chose endocrinology as his specialty. He also completed an MD (with honours) under the guidance of the renowned cardiologist Dr JH Wright.
He was appointed consultant physician at Stobhill Hospital in 1969 and following his retiral in 1996 continued as a senior research fellow at Glasgow University.
His strengths included being a gifted orator, having a wonderful way with words and the ability to back up his arguments with thoroughly analysed data. He was always an inquisitive physician which was to the considerable benefit of his patients.
Within all of these activities, his family were front and centre in his life. He cared lovingly for his wife Anna of 57 years in her final illness. He is survived by his son Matthew and daughter Sarah, both of whom are distinguished academics in Edinburgh.
FRANK DUNN and ALLYSON POLLOCK

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Times

44 minutes ago

• Times

I know my public sector pension is great, but I can't afford it

M ohamed Habad has a workplace pension that millions of workers can only dream of. As a foundation doctor at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, Essex, he was automatically enrolled in the NHS pension scheme. He was contributing 9.8 per cent of his salary and his employer was paying in an enormous 23.7 per cent. So why has he opted out of this generous savings scheme — along with many more of his NHS colleagues? Habad, 28, graduated from medical school last summer but it could be nine years until he completes his training to become an orthopaedic surgeon. He pays £800 a month to rent his room in hospital accommodation, £600 to help his family cover his empty room in their London council flat, about £300 a month on groceries and £200 on gas and electricity.

The Sun

an hour ago

• The Sun

Assisted dying puts price on my head, says disabled peer Lord Kevin Shinkwin as he speaks out against the bill

A DISABLED peer said he fears he would not be alive today if assisted dying was already legal. Lord Kevin Shinkwin said the Terminally Ill Adults Bill 'puts a price on my head' and he would have felt pressure to agree to having a lethal injection over fear of being a burden. 1 The Tory's warning comes as campaigners vow to fight the assisted dying bill in the Lords after MPs narrowly backed it by just 23 votes on Friday. Lord Shinkwin, 54, is a disability rights campaigner who has a severe form of brittle bone disease. He said: 'I am a disabled person. I cost the NHS, over the course of my lifetime, probably several million pounds to keep me alive. 'This Bill would put a price on my head — on the head of so many disabled people.' Asked if he feared he would not be alive today if the assisted dying law was in force, Lord Shinkwin said: 'I think you have hit the nail on the head. "Absolutely. I was in intensive care a few months ago, and had a doctor come over to me when I was extremely vulnerable and said, 'Have you considered assisted dying?', I would have felt under real pressure to do that.' Lord Shinkwin said he and other peers will now amend the Bill so it has greater safeguards. As it is a private member's Bill and not a government initiative, some peers are vowing to try to block it altogether. ASSISTED DYING VOTE What Happens Next? - With the Commons backing the Bill, it now moves to the House of Lords for detailed debate and scrutiny. - Peers can suggest amendments, which would send the Bill back to the Commons — a process known as 'ping pong'. - But because this is a major conscience issue, the unelected Lords are unlikely to block it outright after it passed the elected House. - Supporters hope it will win final approval and receive Royal Assent by October, officially becoming law. - A four-year implementation period will follow, allowing time to establish the new system, including expert panels and regulatory safeguards.

Scottish Sun

2 hours ago

• Scottish Sun

English region where men use most Viagra revealed – where does your town rank?

NHS stats show men in the North used the little blue pills much more often than in the South last year STIFF COMPETITION English region where men use most Viagra revealed – where does your town rank? Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) FELLAS from Yorkshire need most help rising to the occasion in the bedroom, according to new figures. Chaps in the county are given the most prescriptions for Viagra or similar drugs to aid performance. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 2 NHS stats show men in the North used the little blue pills much more often than in the South last year. The East Riding of Yorkshire, including the towns of Goole, Beverley and Bridlington, topped the table with 3.572 per cent needing them. But it faced stiff opposition from Northumberland with 3.359 per cent. Other Yorkshire towns where a high proportion of men needed a bedtime boost were Rotherham, Barnsley and Scarborough. Meanwhile, those in Dorset, including the coastal towns of Poole and Bournemouth which are popular with retired folk, also made the top five with 3.274 per cent. But fellas in large areas of London, Cambridgeshire and Berkshire were far less likely to get the prescription. Leicester had the lowest rate at 1.5 per cent. Consultant urologist Gordon Muir, of London Bridge Hospital, said: 'NHS provision of this treatment can vary from region to region, as can the ratio of underlying disease which probably explains some of the differences.' Inside UK's fake Viagra epidemic…agonising three-day effects, 50p hits and deadly drugs, drywall & ink used as 'fillers'