AS she prepares to step down as chairman of one of the largest and most pioneering trusts in the country, Dame Fiona Caldicott admits her career has been quite ‘unexpected’.

Dame Fiona will retire from the helm of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in March; leaving a profession which has seen her lead a number of prestigious organisations such as the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and Somerville College at Oxford University.

And last week, to crown it all, she received a lifetime achievement award from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, of which she became the first female president serving between 1993 and 1996.

However, the 77-year-old said, after becoming the first member of her family to go on to higher education, the heights to which her career would take her had not always been clear.

She said: “I didn’t think I would be able to pass the exam for a membership of a college let alone becoming a consultant and president of one.

“I was the first president of any college to have done their training part time, I was the first member of my family to go to university, my career has just been totally unexpected.”

Speaking about the lifetime achievement award she added: “It’s absolutely wonderful – a little bit like getting the brown envelope in which I read that Her Majesty was minded if I would agree to offer me the title of…

“But to have the recognition of your peers is very special, the [damehood] was more about the work I had done not just at the Royal College of Psychiatrists but also across all the colleges, so that was services to medicine.

“It’s more what I’ve personally achieved in psychiatry which feels a bit different.

“They are both very special.”

The daughter of a self-educated barrister, Dame Fiona decided she wanted to become a doctor at a young age while still at the City of London School for Girls.

The human body interested her, particularly the relationship between the body and mind.

After qualifying as a doctor in 1967, she worked part-time in General Practice in Coventry before deciding to specialise in psychiatry.

She said: “I decided I wanted to be a doctor at the age of 10. I read one or two books that were quite influential and that made up my mind.

“I enjoyed people and it’s what people who apply to do medicine still say today, that’s why they become doctors, they enjoy science and like people.”

That passion for people still remains and has been the driving force behind a number of initiatives, which she has overseen during her 10 years as chairman at OUH.

The one improvement of which Dame Fiona takes particular pride in is the changes to mental health services within the trust - helping to introduce a pioneering scheme which has seen OUH become one of the first trusts in the country to have its own fully integrated mental health team.

The initiative, which has just last week won a national award from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, allows a specialised team to provide on hand assessments to patients in the trusts hospitals.

She said: “There’s no doubt about it that many people with a physical illness have psychological effects of that.

“Historically in the NHS you’ve always had a separate organisation or mental health trust alongside one like this.

“The team here are our staff, they work with our staff, our staff know them, they’re involved in training our staff in how to deal with people with psychological problems and it’s quite a different experience for the patient and the staff.”

She added: “I think it’s made a huge difference to our patients and staff and its getting wide recognition as a model of service which should be replicated.”

During her time leading the trust, OUH has also fostered stronger links with the university, leading to a raft of other pioneering improvements to patient care.

She said: “When I first came to the trust the relationship with the university was not all that good but some of us could see the potential for the partnership.

“What it does is it brings the academics in medicine into the hospital because this where they do their practical work and where they do their research.

“So the opportunity to have that as a really strong relationship is a huge benefit to our patients.”

However, with the NHS battling chronic shortages of both staff and funding, Dame Fiona says she is sorry to be leaving the trust during what is undoubtedly one of the health services most challenging times.

She said: “It’s been a very rewarding time, sometimes tough, but great colleagues wonderful staff and I feel that this really is an organisation that does care about the quality of what it does for our patients and that comes through in different way everyday.

“I know sometimes we get things wrong and we try to learn from that but by and large we don’t get complaints about the car ewe offer our patients.

“We get complaints about the car parking or the length of time it takes to get an appointment, but not about the care.”

She added: “I will look back at the trust as a very important part of my life. I haven’t been able to do as much as I had hoped.

“I would like for instance not to be leaving the trust as its dealing with some of the issues it’s trying to deal with at the moment, although I can console myself by saying there are many trusts that are in more difficulty than we are.

“There’s always more that can be done in this sort of role, the public sector generally has been under huge pressure. I would have liked to leave things in a more calm and stable state but you can’t necessarily chose.”