My Week: Sir Liam Donaldson
Swine flu keeps the Chief Medical Officer at full stretch, but he still finds time for Bob Dylan and Newcastle United
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I'm an owl who has to live like a lark because I get up very early most days, about 6am. As the Chief Medical Officer for England, I start each day looking at all the media on health.
One of my colleagues has just got back from a ministerial summit on swine flu in Mexico and brought back information from that which we discuss. South America is in its flu season at the moment. Argentina in particular is struggling. It can help us to predict what is going to happen in the UK when we hit our flu season. I chair a board meeting about planning the reintroduction of revalidation for doctors before going home and speaking to my son about our ongoing anguish with Newcastle United; we're at the point of despair now.
Tuesday
There's an informal meeting of the whole Department of Health this morning. I then do what I've been doing pretty much every day for the past six to eight weeks, which is hold meetings and exchange information about swine flu. I get all the latest information, talk to people who are leading the NHS response, find out where the hot spots are, see where we are with vaccine production. There are more meetings before I do an interview with ITN about tackling obesity. In the evening I go to a dinner at the Royal College of Physicians. I go home and email my friend about the latest Bob Dylan album. We're both big fans and we're trying to establish where it stands in the grand pecking order. We're still not sure.
Wednesday
Now that the number of people being diagnosed with swine flu is so high (about 27,000 cases), we have a meeting about how to collect all the data. We decide to make a media statement tomorrow so we spend a lot of time on that. I then go to the National Quality Board, an initiative to improve quality in the NHS. After that I attend the annual Health and Social Care Awards where there's a dinner and ceremony. Michael Parkinson is another one of the presenters so we compare notes on the 1950s and 60s in Yorkshire.
Thursday
It's the big press conference on swine flu today. I run through it before with Andy Burnham, Secretary of State, to make sure he didn't have any points he wanted to raise about it. I have a working dinner with Dame Carol Black, the chairman of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, in the evening.
Friday
I start doing a podcast for doctors. net.uk about swine flu. I discuss the latest figures, comparing what's happening around the country, the great pressure the NHS is under, vaccines etc. The vaccine will be available in the autumn and we'll be one of the first countries to get it. We'll get a few million doses in early September and then running through to Christmas we'll have 60 million doses or so. When we hit autumn and winter we're expecting a proper epidemic but we'll be prepared.
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