Psychiatrist who was one of the great early advocates for people with learning disabilities
Mary Myers, who has died aged 82, often recounted how, as a "mental handicap" psychiatrist in the early 1980s, she went to visit a hostel for people with learning disabilities and was greeted at the door by a voluble young man with Down's syndrome. Although it was the middle of the afternoon, he was dressed in his pyjamas and he buttonholed Mary in the entrance hall, interrogating her loudly about who exactly she was, why she was visiting and whether she was going to help him. In the midst of this interchange the hostel manager appeared and, plucking the young man roughly out of the way, said scornfully: "Ignore him, Doctor, he thinks everyone's here for his benefit."
This story was told with a benevolent mixture of indignation and compassion and with an empathic understanding of what it is to live a life labelled with disability – it hooked me in as a trainee psychiatrist and shaped my future career. Mary had a remarkable capacity to enthuse, inspire, motivate and change the views of others in order to improve the quality of life of people with learning disabilities and people with autism.
Born Alice Mary Martin in Hornsey, north London, she studied at the Welsh National School of Medicine in Cardiff, qualifying in 1960. She had married Ken Myers in 1955 and both pursued careers in psychiatry. When Ken went to work at Fulbourn hospital, Cambridge, Mary undertook postgraduate training in developmental psychiatry nearby while also bringing up their three children, David, Sarah and Peter. Mary often said that her professional training was informed by her firsthand experiences and the challenges of family life (including having a son with Asperger's), and it was this synthesis that enabled her to establish relationships of trust and support with individuals and their families. She was made a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 1983.
During the 1970s, government policy in the UK was to reduce the number of people with learning disabilities living in hospitals through the provision of support and services within the community. In 1974 Mary took up the post of consultant psychiatrist in mental handicap in Rotherham, with a pioneering role to establish a new community-based service.
In 1982 she was appointed lead consultant in the Sheffield area health authority following a failed piloting of the government's strategy Better Services for the Mentally Handicapped; her job was to "turn the service around". Mary's approach was not to adopt the mantle of didactic expert but to encourage colleagues to learn from others, to bring people together and host conversations and exchanges of ideas and knowledge. Leading international figures were frequently to be found at Mary's "pot-luck suppers", often occupying her spare room while they joined her in advising local services and individuals.
As a member, in the 1970s, of the National Development Team assessing provision for people with learning disabilities, Mary was able to bring her insights and skills to services around the country, visiting hospitals and helping to improve standards. She worked with others on the King's Fund seminal publication An Ordinary Life (1980), which led to a fundamental change in attitudes and the recognition that people with learning disabilities were citizens with rights, who were best served living in "ordinary houses in ordinary streets", rather than in hospitals and hostels.
Mary retired from her post in Sheffield in 1991 but never stopped working. Making little distinction between what she did in her employment and what she valued as a person, she continued to act as an adviser and consultant. In 2002 she went with a small team from Amnesty International to Bulgaria to inspect failing institutions for people with learning disabilities and returned the following year with nursing colleagues to train staff at two institutions. At the time of her death she was studying for a master's degree in autism at Sheffield Hallam University.
She will be remembered as one of the great early advocates for people with learning disabilities who, in a role seen as unconventional for a psychiatrist at that time, really did help to shift attitudes and aspirations. Rather than focus on syndromes and pathology, she emphasised the values of inclusion, empowerment and respect, in making a fundamental and tangible difference to the wellbeing of her patients.
In expression of her Quaker faith, Mary was a vibrant manifestation of George Fox's exhortation to "walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every one".
She is survived by Ken and her children.
• Alice Mary Myers, psychiatrist, born 9 December 1930; died 20 May 2013