Clifford Mann, a consultant in emergency and accident medicine at Musgrove Hospital, Taunton, Somerset, was an inspirational, once-in-a-generation leader and humanitarian who held many auspicious national roles and utilised them to drive evidenced-based improvements in emergency care.
Cliff was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, but brought up in Bristol. His father, John Frederick Alfred Mann, was a quantity surveyor; his mother, Patricia Ann Mann née Hill, was a charity worker. He was a chorister at St Peter’s Church, Henleaze, Bristol, and his love of music and singing was lifelong. He attended St Mary Redcliffe and Temple Colston Church of England Comprehensive School in Bristol and went on to study medicine at Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School, gaining a BSc in 1983 and qualifying in 1986.
He held house posts at Charing Cross Hospital and Musgrove Park Hospital and was a GP trainee in Somerset from 1987 to 1990. He then returned to hospital medicine as a senior house officer in Taunton. In 1991 he went to New Zealand, where he held registrar and senior registrar posts in accident and emergency medicine at Auckland Public Hospital and Middlemore Hospital, Auckland.
He returned to the UK in 1992, as a senior house officer in anaesthetics and intensive care medicine at Taunton. He then held a post as a registrar in accident and emergency medicine at Portsmouth and as a senior registrar at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth.
In 1999 he was appointed as an accident and emergency consultant at Musgrove Park Hospital. He became an institution at Musgrove Park, not just as the architect and ‘father’ of the department, but as a much-loved and respected colleague to all. There he did what he loved most, serving the people of Somerset and tending to them during some of their darkest times. He valued this part of his working life most; not least because of the team around him, which included his wife, Rhona (née Fitzpatrick), also an accident and emergency consultant.
He held several high-profile roles including register (2010-2013) and then president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (from 2013 to 2016). He was also co-lead (from 2017) of the ‘getting it right first time’ programme for emergency medicine, designed to improve standards of emergency care across the country, and, from 2016, was the NHS national clinical director for urgent and emergency care, continuing to work in these posts right up until his death. In all these roles he played a key part in the development of new clinical standards for urgent and emergency care, as well as leading many other innovative improvements. In 2018 he was awarded an OBE for services to emergency medicine.
He was a highly talented researcher, but being interested in the practical application of data to patient care, he was not naturally inclined to academia. He had a particular gift for understanding large datasets, which was put to excellent use in his national roles. The work of which he was most proud, however, was a randomised control study of the modifying the Valsalva manoeuvre which demonstrated substantial improvements in the rate of conversion of supraventricular tachycardia – a simple, cheap and effective therapy of use in daily clinical practice.
Cliff gave everything to improving the lives of his patients, wherever they were, and he was a stalwart supporter of Health Improvement Project Zanzibar (HIPZ), a charity run by colleagues from Taunton, which works to improve the quality of healthcare in Zanzibar. Cliff made many trips there with the charity, where he delivered both care and education in the compassionate, all-embracing way that only he could.
He was also an outstanding wit, raconteur and orator but, above all, he was a loving husband, father and family man; this was always his highest priority. Cliff was survived by his wife, his daughters Rebecca and Grace, his parents, brother and two sisters.
Lisa Munro-Davies
James Gagg
Chris Moulton
[The Royal College of Emergency Medicine Death of former RCEM President Cliff Mann 21 February2021 www.rcem.ac.uk/RCEM/News/News_2021/Death_of_former_RCEM_President_Cliff_Mann.aspx – accessed 29 October 2021; HSJ Tributes paid to ‘exceptional’ national A&E leader ‘who will be remembered forever’ 21 February 2021 www.hsj.co.uk/news/tributes-paid-to-exceptional-national-aande-leader-who-will-be-remembered-forever/7029541.article – accessed 29 October 2021; NHS News Dr Clifford Mann OBE 21 February 2021 https://www.england.nhs.uk/2021/02/dr-clifford-mann/ – accessed 29 October 2021; BBC News 22 February 2021 Emergency doctor Clifford Man was ‘revered’ www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-56152139 – accessed 29 October 2021; Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh In Memoriam – Dr Clifford Mann OBE 22 February 2021 www.rcpe.ac.uk/college/memorium-dr-clifford-mann-obe – accessed 29 October 2021; County Gazette Musgrove Park Hospital staff tribute to Dr Cliff Mann 9 March 2021 www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/news/19147058.musgrove-park-hospital-staff-tribute-dr-clilff-mann/ – accessed 29 October 2021; The Royal College of Emergency Medicine Clifford Mann 22/6/1962-20/2/2021 www.rcem.ac.uk/RCEM/Membership/Obituaries/Clifford_Mann.aspx – accessed 29 October 2021; BMJ 2021 372 804 www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n804 – accessed 29 October 2021]