Sally Davies (doctor)

Dame Sally Davies
DBE FMedSci FRS

Sally Davies in 2014, portrait via the Royal Society
Chief Medical Officer for England
Assumed office
1 June 2010
Preceded by Sir Liam Donaldson
Personal details
Born (1949-11-24) 24 November 1949[1]
Birmingham, England
Nationality English
Alma mater
Occupation Chief Medical Officer for England
Profession Haematologist
Website www.gov.uk/government/people/sally-davies

Dame Sally Claire Davies, DBE, FMedSci, FRS (born 24 November 1949)[1] is the Chief Medical Officer for England. Before that, she was the Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department of Health.[2][3] As a clinician, she specialised in the treatment of diseases of the blood and bone marrow.

Early life

Davies was born into an academic family in Birmingham in 1949. She failed her 11-plus but was nevertheless able to study at the private Edgbaston High School for Girls in Birmingham, where she excelled on the viola.[4][5][6]

Clinical career

Davies studied medicine at Manchester Medical School. She qualified as a doctor in 1972 and later gained a Master of Science degree from the University of London.[1]

She described her early years in clinical practice as "brutalising" and had a four-year break from medicine as a "diplomat's wife" in Madrid, before returning to medical training with renewed zest at the end of the 1970s.[7]

She became a consultant haematologist in 1985 at the Central Middlesex Hospital in Brent - a relatively deprived part of northwest London - and became Professor of Haemoglobinopathies there in 1997, by which time the hospital had been incorporated into Imperial College London. Central Middlesex Hospital was demolished and rebuilt using PFI money in 2006.

Davies is an expert in sickle cell disease: a blood disorder that mainly affects people of African heritage and causes painful 'crises' triggered by physical stress.[8]

Civil Service career

Davies joined the Civil Service in 2004 to take up a research position in London and was soon promoted to Director-General of Research and Development at the Department of Health.[9][10][11] In 2006, she expanded the NHS's research base through the creation of the National Institute for Health Research and went on to become the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Health Secretary.[12]

In June 2010, Davies became interim Chief Medical Officer for England and was confirmed as the permanent holder of that position the following year - the first woman to hold the post.[4] The Chief Medical Officer has a 'rank' equivalent to Permanent Secretary - the highest in the Civil Service - and the incumbent is also the Head of the Medical Civil Service.[13]

Unusually for a British Chief Medical Officer, Davies does not have a background as a specialist in public health. Nevertheless, Davies has written and spoken extensively about the rise of antimicrobial resistance in medicine and animal husbandry, including carrying out work to raise its profile on the international scene.[14] Davies delegated authoring and editing her statutory annual reports to other doctors and healthcare practitioners, although she wrote an introduction to each and oversaw their compilation. She is particularly concerned about excessive alcohol consumption, especially by young women - who, she told the BBC in 2013, "we know can only take about half the alcohol that men can" and so are more prone to liver damage as a result.[15]

In February 2013, Davies was reckoned to be the 6th most powerful woman in the United Kingdom by the BBC Radio 4 programme Woman's Hour,[16] while in 2015 the Health Service Journal ranked her as the most influential woman in the English NHS but only its 14th most influential person.[17]

In July 2013, she was asked by the BBC whether she had ever favoured female doctors in order to counterbalance discrimination against them as a group. Davies replied: "I probably do positively discriminate because, as the men appoint in their own image, so do I appoint in my own image. I like having bright sparky women around, so I do understand how difficult it can be for the men to actually challenge the stereotypes and think differently".[18] In August of that year, she jokingly told the BBC in an interview that the male chromosome carried a "bullshit gene" that allowed some men to blag their way into top jobs.[19]

She regularly briefs Whitehall's most senior ministers and officials, including the Prime Minister himself. As of 2015, Davies was paid a salary of between £210,000 and £214,999 by the department, making her one of the 328 most highly paid people in the British public sector at that time.[20]

In December 2015, Davies came under fire after saying that obesity in women is "as dangerous as the terror threat" and calling for it to be included on the Government's National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies. Also in her annual report, she called for earlier detection of ovarian cancer, better treatment of anorexia nervosa and bulimia, more to be done to protect women from genital mutilation, medical students to be taught about the ways to spot and report domestic abuse, and a more sympathetic approach on the part of employers towards female incontinence and the menopause.[21][22]

In January 2016, Davies reduced the recommended weekly alcohol limit for men to that for women, in new guidelines warning of the association between alcohol consumption and some forms of cancer.[23][24] The guidance gave a new weekly limit of 14 units, while at the same time saying there was no safe level of alcohol consumption.[25] The Financial Times said the two messages were "inherently contradictory"[26] and Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk at Cambridge University, revealed that drinking the maximum allowance set by Davies would be no more dangerous than eating bacon sandwiches or watching films.[27]

Awards and honours

In 2008, Davies was appointed a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) for services to medicine.[28]

She is a Fellow of both the Royal Society and the Academy of Medical Sciences.[29]

Personal life

Davies first married in 1974. She remarried in 1982, but her second husband died that same year from leukaemia.[30] In 1989, she married her third husband - the Dutch haematologist Willem Ouwehand, the leader of the UK's National Blood and Transplant Group and a professor at Cambridge University - and they have two daughters.[1]

She exercises twice a week, eats plenty of fresh vegetables and doesn't smoke.[31] Although she enjoys wine at weekends, she ponders getting cancer with every glass.[32]

She lives in North London.[33]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "DAVIES, Dame Sally (Claire)". Who's Who 2014, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2014; online edn, Oxford University Press.(subscription required)
  2. ↑ https://www.gov.uk/government/people/sally-davies
  3. ↑ https://royalsociety.org/people/sally-davies-11312/
  4. 1 2 "Professor Dame Sally Davies". BBC. Retrieved 29 January 2014.
  5. ↑ http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/Magazine/article1610030.ece
  6. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b038kzww
  7. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/XYXY3DW2ZqRlN1XhrWc8y7/professor-dame-sally-davies
  8. ↑ "People of Today: Sally Claire Davies". http://www.debretts.com. Retrieved 29 January 2014. External link in |publisher= (help)
  9. ↑ http://www.civilserviceworld.com/interview-sally-davies
  10. ↑ http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/www.dh.gov.uk/en/Aboutus/MinistersandDepartmentLeaders/ChiefMedicalOfficer/AboutTheChiefMedicalOfficerCMO/DH_116584
  11. ↑ http://www.acmedsci.ac.uk/fellows/fellows-directory/ordinary-fellows/professor-dame-sally-davies/
  12. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/XYXY3DW2ZqRlN1XhrWc8y7/professor-dame-sally-davies
  13. ↑ http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/press/for-journalists/graduation-ceremonies-1/july-2014/biographies/professor-dame-sally-davies-doctor-of-science
  14. ↑ "UK calls for international action on antimicrobial resistance". Department of Health. Retrieved 22 January 2015.
  15. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0375p86#play
  16. ↑ "Woman's Hour Power list". BBC Radio 4. February 2013.
  17. ↑ "HSJ100 2015". Health Service Journal. 23 November 2015. Retrieved 23 December 2015.
  18. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/XYXY3DW2ZqRlN1XhrWc8y7/professor-dame-sally-davies
  19. ↑ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2396604/Chief-medical-officer-Dame-Sally-Davies-admits-taking-cannabis-university.html
  20. ↑ "Senior officials 'high earners' salaries as at 30 September 2015 - GOV.UK". www.gov.uk. 2015-12-17. Retrieved 2016-03-13.
  21. ↑ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3355256/Obesity-women-dangerous-terror-threat-Extraordinary-claim-health-chief-uses-speech-demand-condition-added-list-public-health-threats.html
  22. ↑ https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/484383/cmo-report-2014.pdf
  23. ↑ http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/6844580/Wine-is-not-good-for-you-says-UK-health-chief.html
  24. ↑ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3387992/Red-wine-s-not-good-Major-shake-alcohol-guidelines-set-rubbish-health-benefits.html
  25. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35255384
  26. ↑ http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/224827a8-b62d-11e5-b147-e5e5bba42e51.html#axzz3wkxUiHTd
  27. ↑ http://www.theweek.co.uk/68353/new-alcohol-health-advice-branded-scaremongering
  28. ↑ Page 6,supplement 58929 - The London gazette
  29. ↑ Fellow Professor Dame Sally Davies - website of the Academy of Medical Sciences
  30. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23695940
  31. ↑ http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/Magazine/article1610030.ece#commentsStart
  32. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35471958
  33. ↑ http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/91fb7c0a-ff9c-11e4-bc30-00144feabdc0.html
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Government offices
Preceded by
Liam Donaldson		 Chief Medical Officer for Her Majesty's Government
2010– 		Succeeded by
Incumbent
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