Interviewed by Lauren Laverne last month (29 October), Dame Lesley selected an eclectic range of tunes, ranging from Mahler to Tina Turner, and from Nina Simone to Bach. To discover what she chose as her luxury item and her cherished book, you can tune into the episode on BBC Sounds or click here: BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, Professor Dame Lesley Regan, obstetrician and gynaecologist.

Professor Dame Lesley Regan is the Government’s first Women’s Health Ambassador for England. She is one of the main drivers behind the upcoming Women’s Health Strategy which aims to tackle the gender health gap and improve services for women.

As a former president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists – only the second woman to hold that post in its 94-year history – she shone a light on historically taboo subjects from period problems and contraception to the menopause.

Lesley was born in London in 1956. When she was seven she told her father that she wanted to be a doctor and although the sciences weren’t her strongest subjects at school, she won a place at the Royal Free Hospital Medical School in London in 1975.

In 1991 she was appointed a senior lecturer in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at St Mary’s Hospital in London and consultant at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. The following year she set up the Recurrent Miscarriage Clinic at St Mary’s which is the largest miscarriage referral service in the world.

In 2020 she was appointed a DBE for services to women’s healthcare.