Four years ago, when I was chair of the health treatment watchdog NICE, I developed cancer of the head and neck.
My career had taken me from the grassroots of the NHS — I spent 36 years as a rural GP — to the service’s commanding heights.
Cancer brought me right to the heart of the health service as an anxious patient. I found myself needing urgent and aggressive treatment.
This meant undergoing two operations, followed by 30 sessions of