On 14 July 2010, Jacob Ross Lukeman, aged 71, of 20 Elm Crescent, Ealing, London W5 3JW.
Mr Lukeman registered in 1962 and retired from the Register in 2005.
Tributes
IAN HARRISON writes: Many present and former London pharmacists will be saddened to hear of the untimely death of Jack Lukeman.
He was chief pharmacist at King Edward VII Hospital, Ealing, from the end of 1971, and the Ealing Hospital, which opened in 1979. This enabled a rationalisation of hospital pharmacy services on just two sites in Ealing. He also acted as line manager to the pharmacy at St Bernard’s Hospital Psychiatric Hospital (later West London Mental Health Trust).
During the 1980s until his retirement in 2002 Jack managed, in addition to the growing pharmacy service, direct access services in the hospital (radiology, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and dietetics).
There were many initiatives at the new Ealing Hospital — computerised stock control and dispensing, aseptic dispensing and the transition of ward pharmacy to clinical pharmacy.
Born in 1938 and educated in Liverpool, Jack graduated from Manchester University in 1961 and registered in 1962. He started his work career in London including time at the Gordon Hospital in Westminster and then in Israel at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. In England he subsequently worked at West Middlesex Hospital before moving to Ealing.
Jack became one of the few larger-than-life characters on the London pharmacy scene. His Liverpudlian humour would entertain many at meetings and professional conferences.
Ask those who worked in Ealing about his fund of true stories which ranged from discovering the theft of enough medicines by a surgeon returning overseas “to set up a field hospital” to finding a goat in the hospital incinerator while destroying out-of-date Controlled Drugs.
To the representatives of the pharmaceutical industry Jack was well known and even feared. It suited his own time management to meet them on a first-come, first-seen basis on a set afternoon each week.
Murmurs were fed back of the experience being “like a cattle market” and surprise that this self-styled socialist had no compunction about milking these capitalist companies for contributions to departmental needs. It was a fair test of the imaginations of representatives.
The staff employed by Jack were glad of his openness, integrity and leadership. He displayed the characteristics that became enshrined in the later concept of clinical governance.
As his area pharmaceutical officer I was asked by colleagues whether I found Jack frustrating at times. My answer was always that I would rather have someone like Jack, who occasionally required reining in, than a manager who needed prodding into action.
Although Jack teased me about the area training based upon Blake & Mouton’s managerial grid, he in fact displayed an excellent concern for the twin objectives of participative management, those of getting along with people and getting the job done well.
Conversations with Jack were always enjoyable. I met him a few times in recent years, including at Peter Sharott’s leaving party in Oxford. After quizzing me about conducting consultancy assignments he subsequently kept busy following up non-pharmacy activities in his retirement. His death following his illness over recent months came faster than predicted.
Poignantly, only the week before his death he had become a grandfather for the first time.
We extend our sincere condolences to Jack’s wife Diane and daughter Ruth.
