Sally Davies: becoming Chief Medical Officer

Chris - How did you then cross the divide into, I want to say sort of politics, but it's sort of health policy, the road that took you towards being Chief Medical Officer?

Sally - It was a gradual thing. The first thing was I did quite a bit of research at my hospital about sickle cell disease with colleagues out of the blue. I got a phone call, would I go and sit on the Regional Health Authority Research Committee? I think they needed someone who had some laboratory experience. And of course I ticked the boxes of being a woman and various other things. So I went and sat on it and the joke of the secretary who later ended up working for me was I said nothing for a year as I sussed it out and learned how it all went. The next year I started to make comments. The third year I was quite strong because I can be. And so the fourth year they got me chairing it. I did have a bit of impostor syndrome and said, I don't know whether I can, my predecessors had been very famous professors and there I was working in a district general hospital. But that was how it started because then, as I always say, if you work hard and you deliver, then the next job comes along. I was made the director of research for all of North London and then for the whole of London. And eventually I became the director general for research and development.

Chris - Were you still doing much haematology work at that time or did this end up really taking over your life?

Sally - I went on that committee in the early 90s and I gave up seeing patients in 2006. So I managed to combine it for a long time. I didn't want to give up seeing patients, but I realised I could have a bigger impact by moving into R&D and later on the CMO Post.

Chris - And it didn't, well maybe it did, scare you a bit by taking on something of that kind of scale. Because it's a huge job being the Chief Medical Officer, isn't it?

Sally - Well that came in 2010. It is massive. Yes. But the thing about being chief medical officer, I think it holds true for any job. There's the job description and you have to deliver that. But once you're on top of that, you can then think, so how can I, as CMO, improve a lot of people? What can I do that will make a difference? And you have freedoms that most don't have.

Chris - I can remember listening to you on the radio talking about glasses of wine and cancer risk. Did <laugh>, did you expect that? I mean, just remind us what you said.

Sally - What I was doing was talking about the new Chief Medical Officer guidelines on safe drinking. And actually there is a direct relationship between the amount of wine drunk by women and their risk of breast cancer. I mean, it's a straight line. And so I explained that and said, and actually there's truth in it, that I actually often thought as I picked up a glass of wine, 'oh dear, breast cancer risk.' But it's a risk and you take your judgements. Unfortunately, it was interpreted very differently.

Chris - <laugh>. Yeah, I mean it turned into a bit of a joke, but at the same time it got the message out there, didn't it? I remember that. I can hear your voice in my head saying it and because people laughed a bit at what you said, it nevertheless made them think.

Sally - Well, that's true. And The Times published a wonderful cartoon of me being the nanny in Mary Poppins. So yes, we got the message over.