Professor Pamela Mary Enderby

Pam Enderby is an emeritus professor of community rehabilitation and a qualified speech and language therapist who has specialised in therapy-related research for over 40 years, with a special emphasis on measuring outcomes.

She has had a distinguished career within the University, being in turn Chair of Community Rehabilitation, Head of the Department of Human Communication Sciences, and the first-ever woman to serve as Dean of the University’s Faculty of Medicine. She has also found time to supervise 30 doctoral students, serve as principal investigator on 40 research projects, author 14 books, and publish over 300 journal articles.

Her career beyond the University has been equally illustrious: Pam established the Speech and Language Therapy Research Unit in Bristol and has served as Chair of the College of Speech and Language Therapists and President of the International Association of Communication Sciences and Disorders amongst many other roles.

In 1986, she was the lead applicant in a legal challenge, arguing for equal pay for speech and language therapists. Senior speech therapists - predominantly women - received around 40% less pay than senior pharmacists or clinical psychologists – predominantly men at that time.

A seven-year legal battle followed and, despite defeat in the UK courts when the Government defended the challenge, Pam took her case to the European Court of Justice in Strasbourg, which ruled in her favour in 1993. Eventually, after 15 years, Pam’s challenge led to a fundamental review, based on the principle of equal pay, with huge benefits for women-dominated professions in the Health Service.

Pam has received many awards and honours over the years for her research and clinical contribution. These include Life Membership from the British Society for Rehabilitation Medicine, honorary Doctorates of Science from the University of the West of England and the University of Sheffield, the Tavistock Award for Aphasia, the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Society for Research in Rehabilitation and the Princess Margaret Award from the Stroke Association.

For her services to speech and language therapy, she was awarded an MBE in 1984 and an OBE in 2018.