Her father John Gordon Davies was an Anglican priest and theologian, and her mother Emily Mary Tordoff[6] was a scientist: they both became academics at the University of Birmingham.

[citation needed] Davies 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 at the end of the 1970s.

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.

[11] In June 2010 Davies was appointed interim Chief Medical Officer (United Kingdom) and was confirmed as the permanent holder of that position the following year – the first woman to hold the post.

[citation needed] 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.

[18] 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.

The report also recommended a national audit of ovarian cancer, and challenged "taboos" around the menopause and incontinence "to make sure embarrassment is never a barrier to better health.

Furthermore, University College London epidemiology professor Sir Michael Marmot said that the UK had entered the pandemic with "depleted" public services, leaving it less able to cope.

[35] In the 2009 New Year Honours Davies was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to medicine.

In the 2020 New Year Honours, Davies became the second woman (and the first outside the Royal Family, as well as ignoring foreign politicians as honorary members) to be appointed Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB), for services to public health and research.

[41] "All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.” – "Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies".

{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) This article incorporates text available under the CC BY 4.0 license.