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The first woman to hold the senior advisory role on how to operate in a male-dominated environment How do you describe the way you operate and how much of that is influenced by you being the first woman to hold the post of chief medical officer? As chief medical officer, I'm an independent adviser, but to influence government policy, you have to build social capital and there are different ways of doing that. I've set out to build my social capital on being scientific and evidence-based in all advice I give, against a background of delivery. If you look back through my career, what I did...

Dame Fiona Caldicott's report emphasises that patients are at risk if clinicians base decisions on inadequate data Plans to share patient information electronically date back to the Blair government's over-ambitious and now defunct NHS national programme for IT . And despite the coalition's aim that all 6,000-plus GP practices in England must offer patients online access to their records by 2015, so far only 61 are doing so. In her landmark report on patient information in health and social care, Dame Fiona Caldicott puts greater sharing of patient data at the forefront of her 26 recommendations...

The society's new president on a decade with Nice, integrating economics into healthcare and understanding the Principia Mathematica What do you hope to achieve in your new role at the Royal Society of Medicine ? I have four immediate priorities. First, I must maintain the RSM's special position in medicine as a centre for education and scholarship both in the UK and globally. The society has members in 92 countries and I need to ensure that all their interests are protected. Second, to nurture two of the RSM's more recent activities – encouragement of innovation and support for global...

Ali Parsa, chief executive of the private company running a Cambridgeshire NHS trust, tells SA Mathieson how he aims to make the hospital one of the best in the country On 1 February, the private healthcare provider Circle Partnership took over the management of Hinchingbrooke health care trust in Cambridgeshire. While not a privatisation – Circle has not taken ownership of the trust, and staff remain on health service contracts – the 10-year franchise represents a new level of private sector involvement in running an NHS organisation. For Ali Parsa, chief executive of Circle, it also represents...