UK Special Envoy on Antimicrobial Resistance

Professor Dame Sally Davies

Biography

Professor Dame Sally Davies GCB DBE FRS FMedSci is the UK Special Envoy on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR).

Before this, she was Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for England and Chief Medical Adviser to the UK government from March 2011 to September 2019, having held the post on an interim basis since June 2010.

Dame Sally advocates globally on AMR. She is a leading figure in global health, having served as a member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Executive Board 2014-2016, and as co-convener of the United Nations Inter-Agency Co-ordination Group (IACG) on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), which reported to the United Nations Secretary General in 2019.

Dame Sally has long represented the UK internationally on the subject of AMR, most recently at the G7 Health Ministers’ Meeting (2021), COP26 Summit in Glasgow (2021), and the United Nations High-Level Interactive Dialogue on AMR (2021). As CMO, Dame Sally co-led a global campaign to bring the issue of AMR to the 71st United Nations General Assembly in New York, leading to 193 countries agreeing the landmark 2016 Political Declaration on AMR.

Since 2020, she has also been a member of the UN Global Leaders Group on Antimicrobial Resistance, co-chaired by Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados and Sheikh Hasina Wazed, Prime Minister of Bangladesh.

She is currently a non-executive director on the boards of: The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation; Genomics PLC; The Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford; and The Clinton Health Access Initiative.

She was formerly on the boards of Cumberland Lodge and Ashridge Business School, Genomics England Ltd. and UK Research & Innovation.

From 2004 to 2016, Dame Sally was the Chief Scientific Adviser for the Department of Health, where she established and then became the inaugural Director of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR).

Dame Sally received her DBE in 2009. She was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 2014 and a member of the National Academy of Medicine, USA in 2015. She was awarded the Cameron Prize of the University of Edinburgh in 2017, and in 2020 was appointed as an honorary fellow of the Science Museum, UK.

In 2020, Dame Sally was awarded the inaugural Nelson Mandela Prize for Health Promotion by the World Health Organization.

In the 2020 New Year Honours, Dame Sally was appointed Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB), for services to public health and research.

She was appointed Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, on 8 February 2019, effective from 8 October 2019.

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UK Special Envoy on Antimicrobial Resistance

The UK Special Envoy on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) represents the UK government on the subject of AMR internationally.

They also:

  • work across all UK government departments to advise on policy and delivery of a One Health response to AMR, including in human health, animal health, agriculture and the environment
  • advise the UK government on the delivery of the 5-year national action plan for AMR 2019 to 2024 and 20-year vision for AMR, with a specific focus on the UK’s globally facing activities
  • work with foreign governments, international organisations and multilateral groups and sectors to maintain global momentum and action to tackle AMR
  • act as an ad hoc adviser to the UK Fleming Fund, UK Global AMR Innovation Fund and other UK government funded AMR activities overseas

Department of Health and Social Care

Previous roles in government

  • Chief Medical Officer