25. Dr Michelle Drage

As chief executive of Londonwide LMCs, Dr Drage has always led London’s GPs strongly, but this year she issued a rallying cry to declare a ‘state of emergency’.

The comments from her nominators say it all: ‘She’s taking the fight to the Government’; ‘Leads from the front with passion and determination’; and most tellingly: ‘She has our back’.

She helped highlight the effect on London of the MPIG and PMS reviews, with a survey that revealed one in five London practices might close.

The LMC’s #GPStateofEmergency campaign aims to help practices refuse unresourced workload requests. And it won a legal battle against NHS England’s decision to issue breach notices to practices refusing to open all day on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.

And her withering takedown of the GP Forward View said it all, branding it ‘constructive dismissal’ at the LMC Conference. ‘They want a new model and they’re going to get it, whatever the cost to us,’ she railed.

Why influential: Capital’s GP defender, upping her campaign this year to protect general practice

Surprising fact: Anaphylactic to crustaceans ‘human or not’