Sir Kenneth Calman was a doctor, public servant and academic leader whose identity as a proud Scot underpinned his values of compassion, ethics and hard work. In the 1970s, as the University of Glasgow’s first professor of oncology, Calman, who has died aged 83, set up networks of cancer patients who could share their experience of living with the disease and its treatment with fellow sufferers and medical practitioners. Later, as chief medical officer for England, 1991-98, he advised the UK government on the risks to human health during the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) outbreak.
Demonstrating his skill at handling contentious issues, from 2007 until 2009 Calman chaired the Commission on Scottish Devolution – known as the Calman commission – which had been set up by Scottish Labour and the other minority unionist parties in the Scottish parliament against opposition from the ruling Scottish National party. Its report was published in 2009, and its recommendations, described as “significant but gentle surgery on the body politic” by BBC Scotland’s political correspondent Andrew Kerr, were largely incorporated into the Scotland Act of 2012.
After training in transplant surgery in Glasgow, from the mid-1970s Calman shifted to cancer medicine at a time when more effective treatments were becoming available. He was also influenced by the work of Dame Cicely Saunders on palliative care. Convinced that a patient-centred approach to treatment was essential, in 1980 he set up the Scottish charity Tak Tent (Take Care, later Cancer Support Scotland), to give patients a voice in their care.
His first foray into public service came when he was appointed chief medical officer for Scotland, a post he held from 1989 until 1991. At the time Edinburgh had an unenviable reputation as the “Aids capital of Europe”. On his watch the Lothian Health Board launched a “frank and fun” safe sex campaign, also called Take Care, which was in marked contrast to the doomy Aids: Don’t Die of Ignorance campaign that ran in England. Recognising that HIV in Scotland was transmitted principally through intravenous drug use, Scotland’s health authorities developed and expanded needle exchange programmes.
Calman was immediately catapulted into the same role for England, based in the UK Department of Health (DoH), to succeed Sir Donald Acheson in 1991. Like Acheson, Calman was concerned about possible links between BSE and the human brain disorder known as new…
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