Stephen Edward Barnes

Stephen Barnes, known by his childhood nickname Jim, was born in Oxford and educated at Westminster School. He trained at Cambridge and the Middlesex. After house jobs he embarked on a career in paediatrics, holding senior house officer, registrar, and then lecturer and senior registrar posts in Oxford. He spent three years working and travelling in Canada before taking up a consultant post at Salisbury District Hospital in 1978.

Jim and his colleague David Stratton worked a one in two acute rota, with minimal registrar cover, for 15 years. Despite this heavy workload they restructured and improved children’s services, with Jim focusing on the community.

An early priority was children with physical …