Paul Henry Walter Rayner

Paul H W Rayner pioneered home care for children with diabetes.

Many children throughout the world now benefit from the adoption of Paul Rayner’s philosophy of the management of diabetes, whereby all but the most serious aspects of the condition can generally be managed at home. The provision of effective home care services reduces the stress to affected children and their parents, particularly at the time of the initial diagnosis and during inter-current illnesses. It also greatly reduces the need for hospital admission and allows diabetic children to lead a more normal life.

Rayner trained when paediatrics and its subspecialties were at an early stage of development and, like most of his generation, he came to paediatrics via adult medicine. His preclinical training at Birmingham University included a BSc (Hons) course in the Department of Physiology, where his interest in the application of physiological principles to clinical medicine was first kindled. After qualifying in 1960, he did house jobs in London and Birmingham, including six months as house physician at Birmingham Children’s Hospital to Professor (later Sir Douglas) Hubble, professor of paediatrics at the University of Birmingham. He then progressed to registrar posts in general medicine and paediatrics at Warwick and Stratford upon Avon, and gained his MRCP (London) in 1964.

In 1966 Rayner …