The life of our mother, Jean Broughton, who has died aged 97, was devoted to public service. Between 1935 and 1941, she studied medicine at the Royal Free hospital in London and, after completing house jobs, was conscripted into the Royal Army Medical Corps. She served in Normandy and India, where she met and married Hanns Friedlander, a Viennese refugee. When Jean and Hanns settled in Manchester in 1948, they were looking forward to working as GPs for the new National Health Service, offering first-class medical care to all patients, rich or poor.
Manchester became home and "Dr Broughton" was soon a well-known figure in Hulme, Moss Side and Whalley Range, where the couple practised together. Home was over the surgery and the phone and door were answered day and night. In the early days, patients waited in the dining room and the children stayed upstairs during surgery hours. When the wholesale demolition of Hulme took place in a slum clearance programme in the 1960s, only the pubs were spared. Jean, Hanns and five other doctors planned and built the first group practice centre, Hulme House, in 1963. Always far-sighted, Jean insisted on the inclusion of a dental suite. For several years, Hulme House stood amid the rubble of the demolition.
At this time, Jean became the medical officer of the Manchester Girls' Remand Home, working tirelessly to ensure the health and wellbeing of the girls. She instituted a complaints book and checked it regularly. She listened to the girls, treated their illnesses and helped them with academic work. She gave a firework party every year and visited whenever she was needed.
Jean always fought for the rights of her patients and took consultants on domiciliary visits to the smallest and poorest terrace houses for a second opinion and to make them aware of the living conditions. Dr William Brockbank, dean of the medical school at Manchester University, chose the Hulme practice to be the first to host final-year medical students to teach them about general practice.
Alongside her work in general practice, Jean was an active member of the Manchester Local Medical Committee and sat on the BMA committee that produced the report Venereal Disease and Young People (March 1964). Many of her friends were members of the Medical Women's Federation, of which she in turn was branch president.
She continued in practice after the death of Hanns in 1969, retiring in 1981 to Norfolk, to cultivate her garden and enjoy visits from her grandchildren. For five years, she helped the village GP practice as a locum. She volunteered at a local prison creche and delivered meals on wheels until she was considerably older than most of the recipients.
Jean is survived by us, and by her four grandchildren, Sarah, Gemma, John and Helen, and four great-grandchildren, Carla, Jacob, Poppy and Charlie.