By Audrey Paterson and Richard Price
Michael Jordan, radiographer and former general secretary and chief executive of the Society and College of Radiographers passed away unexpectedly during the weekend of 6 July 2024.
Michael is survived by his wife Ann, and his daughters Gill and Sue and their families.
Michael hailed from Nottingham, moving from there to London to train as a radiographer under John Ashworth, a past president of the Society, at the Bromley School of Radiography. It was here that he met his wife Ann who also became a radiographer.
'More by accident than on purpose'
In 1954, having passed his qualifying examinations, he worked at Brook General and Lewisham Hospitals before joining the Society in 1960, first, as assistant secretary under Mr K C Denley before succeeding him as general secretary in 1976.
He says he applied for the assistant secretary’s post more by accident than on purpose and recalled that he was attending a Fellowship course at the Middlesex Hospital when he spotted an advertisement for the position.
There was speculation that John Ashworth would apply, leading Michael to ring him on the pretext that he was thinking of applying. Ashworth’s answer made it clear that he was not, and Michael forgot about it until John Ashworth rang to ask why he had not yet submitted his application, encouraging him to do so.
Michael applied and was successful following interview by Ken Denley, Ray Hutchinson, Bill Rugg and Noreen Chesney. His initial salary was around £500 per year.
Considerable influence
The relationship with Ken Denley was always formal and, even in the 2020s when talking about his early years, Michael always referred to him as Mr Denley, never by his first name. He recounted, too, that he was taken to task by Mr Denley for calling Council member Ernest Higginbottom, Ernie.
Michael Jordan’s influence on the Society was considerable. He was intimately involved in the major changes to education, from the introduction of A-level entry requirements in 1978, the change to a three-year training period, and on to degree programmes at the end of the 1980s/early 1990s. Michael took part in the Society’s centenary oral history project and in his interview, he gave a flavour of his role in the long path to degree education.
One of Michael’s early roles at the Society was as one of its Whitley Council representatives, taking on the mantle from Mr Denley in 1966. After almost two decades of fruitless negotiations, in 1968, Michael succeeded in reaching an on-call agreement that linked on-call payments to grades and salaries for the first time.
Landmark Limbert case
Michael also represented the Society in the landmark Limbert case in the mid-1960s which led to significant change in NHS disciplinary procedures. Limbert lost his job as a result of unfair disciplinary action that had not followed due, or any, process.
As a result, the Society refused to carry job advertisements from the hospital, maintaining an embargo for several months despite a number of appeals from the Ministry of Health.
The Society only relented when the ministry confirmed that the lessons learned in Mr Limbert’s case would inform revision of NHS disciplinary processes.
Instrumental to industrial action
In the 1970s much of Michael’s time was taken up dealing with the abysmal pay rates for members and, in the pre-Halsbury Report period, he was instrumental in organising the Society’s industrial and strike action, the march by members which he led with the president of the time, John Evans, and the rally in 1974.
As he recounts in ‘The Maturing Years: A History of the Society and College of Radiographers 1970-1995’, members were inflamed that a pay increase for other health workers had left radiographers even further behind.
Action groups were formed in a number of the Society’s branches with ‘radiographers determined as never before to ensure that they received a fair deal’. After taking up the post of general secretary on 1 January 1977, Michael oversaw the establishment of the College of Radiographers in the same year, and brought in much needed expertise from outside the profession to lead the organisation’s industrial relations and education activities.
Subsequent structural reform reduced the burden on Council by establishing standing committees with authority to make decisions within policy boundaries.
Michael Jordan at the Society of Radiographers for the Oral History Project in June 2019
Stabilising the Society
Michael was also instrumental in stabilising the finances of the Society which were in a parlous state due to rampant inflation at the time, and the work associated with industrial action and the Halsbury Inquiry.
The financial situation was not helped by an explosion in the boiler room at the Society’s headquarters less than a month after Michael became general secretary, necessitating further expenditure of £12,000 to cover the shortfall in the insurance claim.
In terms of education, the diplomas in nuclear medicine and medical ultrasound came to fruition during the 1970s and, importantly, were open to professions other than radiographers.
At the helm
On the professional front, Michael was at the helm when Council took the decision to amend the Articles of Association and repeal Article 21 at the 1978 Annual General Meeting. After more than 50 years, radiographers were once again permitted by their professional body to provide reports, a first step on the road to the development of the now widespread role of reporting radiographer.
In the 1980s, Michael oversaw the purchase of 13 Upper Wimpole Street, a much needed move to extend the Society’s headquarters to accommodate an increasing number of staff and other facilities needed to provide for increasing numbers of Society members and expansion of the Society’s portfolio of activities to support them.
Progressive, collaborative and, when necessary, combative, Michael was at the helm for the Clegg report, TUC affiliation, the establishment of Med X Ray, and the advent of Patrons for the College amongst many other events.
'Not afraid to speak his mind'
He was not afraid to speak his mind to Council members or to government ministers and civil servants, for example his calling out of Patrick Jenkin MP in the 1980s for his criticism of radiographers intent on strike action because they would receive a pay cut if the Clegg report was implemented, and his battle with the Chief Scientific Officer in the 1990s in relation to his opposition to degree education for radiographers.
Michael Jordan was a constant presence at the heart of the Society’s annual conferences, usually with Ann, his wife. His judgement was always sound and one of his favourite stories was about a past president who accused him of ‘nearly making a mistake’.
Michael retired as general secretary and chief executive officer in 1993 and at the Presidential Inauguration that year, he was awarded the Silver Medal of the Society in recognition of his service to the profession.
Michael gave of his time unselfishly and no more so than in the Society’s Oral History Project in 2019 and he was of great assistance in our preparation of the book ’The Society of Radiographers,100 Years 1920-2020’. A true servant of the profession who dedicated almost forty years to radiography; a former colleague and a friend who will be sorely missed.
(Image: Michael Jordan FCR in 1993)