Ray Jobling

Ray Jobling studied Social Science & the University of Liverpool before taking up his first academic appointment as a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of East Anglia's School of Social Studies. He then moved to the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada where he was an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education. In 1968 he was appointed to a Lectureship in Sociology at Cambridge in the Faculty of Economics & Politics, simultaneously becoming a Fellow of St John's College. Subsequently his Faculty assignment shifted to Social & Political Sciences.

For the last years of his Cambridge career before retirement Ray became Senior Tutor of St John's College for more than a decade, & then finally transferred to  a senior position with the intercollegiate Senior Tutors' Committee. He has also had responsibility for the development of the University's Disability Resource Centre & chaired the Committee on University Health Services.

Ray's teaching has always had economic & social issues and public policy concerns as its principal focus. This has complemented his profiles in research, consultancy & advisory work.

He began his career in that respect by researching policy & practice in the development of higher education during the expansionary & innovatory era of the 1960s/1970s, writing in particular about the foundation of a wave of new Universities in the UK & elsewhere. In 1970 he held a Research Fellowship which allowed him to make a provisional enquiry into apartheid  & the higher education policies of the Nationalist Government of South Africa. He followed this up with another period of research in 1972 in that country, holding a British Academy Overseas Fellowship.

Ray's interest moved thereafter to the Sociology of health, illness & medical care, a concern which has occupied his attention since then. He was a Founding Editor of the academic journal The Sociology of Health & Illness.  Most of his work has had as its focus the impact of chronic illness & its treatment on patients, & he is particularly known for his contribution to the understanding of skin disorders & stigmatising conditions. He has written & lectured extensively on patient experience, & has provided professional advice to medical specialists, health policy makers, patients' organisations, & the pharmaceutical industry, not only in Britain but also elsewhere in Europe, USA, & Israel . He is an Adviser to the UK ‘s  All-Party Parliamentary Group on Skin Disease. For well over 30 years he has chaired the biggest charity-registered skin patients' organisation The Psoriasis Association.

More generally Ray has also held successive non-executive appointments within the governance framework of the NHS in Cambridgeshire. For eight years he was Chairman of Cambridge Community Health Council.

Ray has had a sustained involvement with the Pharmacy profession, chairing for 8 years a Research Consortium which commissioned & managed a major series of projects in the field of community pharmacy practice. He was a Privy Council lay appointee to the Council of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of G.B which not only  had responsibility for professional leadership, but also the statutory duty for regulating the practise of Pharmacy. In a recent reform regulatory responsibility was transferred to the General Pharmaceutical Council, of which Ray has became one of the first appointed members.  He has also chaired Pharmacy Health Link which specialised in promoting the role of community pharmacy in delivering public health advice & relevant services, as well as serving as a Trustee of the Pharmacy Practice Research Trust.  Closely related to these activities, Ray contributes to the Department of Health's programme directed towards planning & managing the manpower & workforce base for the future development of pharmacy services within the National Health Service.

Ray has had a longstanding interest & involvement in politics & campaigning on economic & social issues. He played a major role in the late 1970s & early 1980s in trades union & community campaigns around the closure of coal mines & steelmaking plants, notably the high profile anti-closure campaign in Corby. He has also been active in the organised opposition to privatisation in public sector service provision, especially in the NHS & related health & social services.