Vivien Walsh

Vivien Walsh

I am a member of the Labour Party (Manchester Withington Constituency) and the University and College Union. I strongly support the full public ownership of the NHS, with the democratic involvement by patients and the workforce in its running and management. I campaign against the privatization of the NHS, including by Labour if necessary.

I have lived in France and experienced a different kind of health care system, often more straightforward and less bureaucratic in terms of access to care and treatment, but enormously more bureaucratic on the funding side, as users of the service have to pay at the point of use, and then claim it back either through national insurance (paid through taxation of salary) or private insurance (for what is not covered by national insurance) with a system in place to cover people who are not working or low-paid and emergency treatment.

On the professional side, I am Emeritus Professor of Innovation at the University of Manchester. I have a B.Sc. in Chemistry and a Ph.D. in Science and Technology Policy, and my research has focused on the pharmaceutical industry from economic, sociological and historical perspectives. To give an idea of what this means, my most recent publications include: The Story of Taxol: Nature and Politics in the Pursuit of an Anticancer Drug, published by Cambridge University Press (with Jordan Goodman); “Contingency in Innovation and the role of National Systems: Taxol and Taxotère in the USA and France,” Research Policy, 33 (9) 1307-1327) (with Muriel Le Roux); and International Competitiveness & Technological Change, Oxford University Press (with Marcela Miozzo).