MEET the pioneering doctor who first entered the profession a week before the NHS was formed, and went on to introduce innovations that are still used in hospitals across the country to this day.

Dr Gordon Laing, from Culcheth, qualified as a doctor just days before the health service was introduced on July 5 1948.

He would go on to be responsible for innovations such as red A&E signs and triage nurses, which are standard practice in hospitals across the country to this day.

Now 93, Dr Laing came from a medical background - following in the footsteps of his dad and uncles.

But the introduction of the NHS was an issue that caused some divide in the family.

The dad-of-two and granddad-of-four said: “When the NHS first came in, I thought it was marvellous to have a service offering free medical treatment.

“But the medical fraternity didn’t want it - the British Medical Association were strongly opposed to the NHS being introduced.

“My father was a GP in Manchester, but he died when I was at boarding school.

“I think he would have approved, because he looked after a lot of poor people.

“His three brothers were all doctors in general practice as well, but none of them wanted anything to do with the NHS.

“I remember having awful arguments with my uncles - they were strongly against it.

“They complained that they didn’t want to be civil servants and they didn’t want to be salaried by the government - they thought their independence as a doctor would be damaged in some way.

“As I was newly-qualified, they told me I didn’t know anything.

“But I wanted to join the health service, because I thought it would be a marvellous thing.”

Having been raised in Manchester, Dr Laing was inspired to head into emergency medicine following his time working as a medic in the RAF.

While posted in Libya, he tended to a number of civilians who had been injured after stepping on landmines.

He would later became one of the first A&E consultants in the country, appointed to the role at Hope Hospital in Salford in 1972.

And Dr Laing was also responsible for developing and running the A&E departments at Salford Royal Hospital and the Manchester Royal Infirmary.

It was in this role that Dr Laing sought to import a number of medical innovations from hospitals in the UK.

But his first scheme, one that will now be familiar to any visitor to any hospital in the UK, was very much his own idea.

Dr Laing, who has lived in Culcheth for the past 24 years, said: “All the red A&E signs you see in hospitals throughout the country, I was responsible for.

“Just after I was appointed at Hope Hospital, all these awful grey signs appeared - they all looked the same.

“I went along to the administrator of the Salford health authority, and he listened to what I had to say.

“About three weeks later I got the red signs with white letters, and a huge sign over the front door too.

“The administrator took the idea down to the King’s Fund in London, and people came from all over the country to take photographs of the signs and ended up copying them.

“They’re still using them to this day.”

Warrington Guardian:

Learning from fellow medical professionals in Baltimore and Washington, Dr Laing's idea of introducing a major trauma centre in the Manchester was knocked back by the powers that be.

He was also told that he could not introduce paramedics into A&E departments in the 1970s.

But he did employ the country's first triage nurse.

Dr Laing added: “In Baltimore they had a helipad on the roof, which fascinated me.

“When I came back I wanted to do the same thing over here but nobody was interested.

“That was 1982, and the hospital is only now getting a trauma unit with a helipad.

“The senior ambulance officers didn’t like the idea of employing paramedics - I was summoned by my bosses and told to stop it, or else.

“I said at the time that they were being short-sighted, which made them furious.

“They started doing this later on, but I didn’t get the credit for it.

“But I was able to introduce the first triage nurse at Hope Hospital."

Dr Laing retired in 1989, but would continue to work in medical law and then became a published author.

His medical book, Accident and Emergency Medicine, is still used in the training of up-and-coming paramedics.

He added: “The NHS is a wonderful organisation - people tend to belittle it but they shouldn’t do.

“Where would we be without it?

“We can’t go back, and we must put money into our NHS somehow.”