The senior civil servant became the Department of Health's director of policy, commissioning and primary care in 2007 and has played a crucial role in shaping primary care strategy in those five years.
From the Labour government's access drive to his more recent role leading the coalition's commissioning reforms, he has undoubtedly been a man of quiet influence through two successive governments.
That influence is set to continue with the announcement he is to take the job of director in charge of primary care and commissioning guidance at the NHS Commissioning Board, which will includestandard contracts and the development of incentives for CCGs.
Yet it is his work championing improvements in healthcare for people with learning disabilities that prompted one of our panel to comment that they ‘have a lot of time for Ben Dyson' who, they say, ‘seems to get primary care and also hard-to-reach groups'.
