Dr Edward (Ted) Baxter Owen Smith, VRD

Formerly Consultant Psychiatrist to the Oxfordshire Health Authority and Civilian Advisor in Psychiatry to the Royal Navy

Ted Smith was born on 24 January 1926. He came from a naval family: his grandfather was an admiral, his brother joined the navy when he was 16, and Ted spent 4 years in the Fleet Air Arm. Ted had a strong sense of duty and he enjoyed a challenge. He set up one of the first multidisciplinary community teams, he was one of the first psychiatrists to become a full-time specialist in general hospital psychiatry, and he was Civilian Advisor in Psychiatry to the Royal Navy.

Ted Smith entered St Thomas’ Hospital Medical School after war service. Having qualified (MBBS Lond. 1953), he spent 3 years in general medicine before deciding on a career in psychiatry. He was determined from the beginning to maintain his interest in general medicine, and when he had completed his basic training at the Maudsley Hospital, he returned to St Thomas’ to complete his psychiatric training (DPM 1962). While there, he kept in touch with general medicine and in 1964 became a member of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. He was elected MRCPsych in 1972 and FRCPsych in 1975.

In the following year, Ted Smith was appointed Consultant Psychiatrist to Roundway Hospital with the remit of developing a community psychiatric service based in Swindon. At that time, the policy of community care was agreed but the best means of implementing it was uncertain. Ted based the new service on the general hospital. With great demands for the service and limited resources, he decided on a model of multidisciplinary working in which, although he took overall responsibility, the team members worked as equals and were able to make full use of their professional skills. It is a pattern of service provision that is now commonplace, but at that time was novel. The success of the new service, and the respect with which it was held by both medical colleagues and Social Services, was in large part due to Ted's determination to meet a challenge, to his leadership, and to his support for the members of the community team.

From the beginning, Ted had wanted the new psychiatric service to be linked not only with the community but also with the general hospital in which it was based. When an additional consultant was appointed, Ted took the opportunity to extend his skills in clinical neurophysiology and to set up an electroencephalogram service. This new development led to closer relations with colleagues in adult general medicine and paediatrics, and the satisfaction which this brought contributed to Ted's decision, in 1974, to move from Swindon to become the consultant in charge of the psychiatric service to the United Oxford Hospitals.

The Oxford service had been set up by John Bancroft, a senior member of the University Department of Psychiatry, and Ted became an honorary member of the University Department of Psychiatry and a member of Green College. At that time, Ted was one of the few consultants in the UK working exclusively in general hospital psychiatry, and his success in this role had two sources. First, with his experience of community psychiatry, he was aware of the need to link closely his interventions in the general hospital with the continuing care provided by family doctors. Second, with his experience in general medicine, he understood the point of view of the physicians and surgeons who referred patients to him. In turn, these colleagues respected the skill and effort which Ted brought to all his clinical work, and his dedication to the care of his patients. Before long, he was able to develop further his interest in neuropsychiatry and establish a liaison service with the renal unit.

Ted was now in a position to develop his longstanding interest in medical education. In Oxford, he taught medical students and was involved in the postgraduate training of psychiatrists and general practitioners. In the Royal College of Psychiatrists he was, at various times, Secretary of the Clinical Tutors’ Committee, Secretary of the Education Committee, member of the Joint Committee on Higher Psychiatric Training, sub-Dean, and Chairman of the Chiltern and Thames Valley Division, to all of which he brought his forward looking views and his sound judgement.

For many years after demobilisation, Ted Smith served in the RNVR as an air medical specialist and in 1978 he was appointed Civilian Advisor in Psychiatry to the Navy. In this role, he was a member of several Joint Services Committees, and took part in Anglo–American naval symposia. He supported the Navy psychiatrists working at Haslar Hospital and trained some in his unit in Oxford.

Outside his work, Ted Smith had three abiding passions: his family, his house, and his boat. After the move to Oxford, the family lived in the historic manor house in the village of Ewelme. The house, some of which dated from the 14th century, had once been part of a royal residence. When Ted and his wife moved in, the house was much in need of refurbishment and they worked long and hard to restore both it and the garden in which Elizabeth I had played as a child. Ted was an accomplished sailor and, whenever his many other activities allowed, he took great pleasure in sailing his boat which he moored on the South coast.

Ted Smith had taken a particular interest in the problems of patients with renal disease and, by a cruel turn of fate, he developed renal failure soon after he retired from practice. He responded to the challenge of regular renal dialysis with typical courage and determination, and continued to live a near normal life for a further 8 years assisted lovingly by his wife, Elaine. Ted Smith died on 18 June 2008 aged 82. He is survived by his second wife, Elaine, and their three sons and one daughter; and by the three children of his first marriage.