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3. Dr David Geddes

Dr David Geddes comes in at number three in the 2013 Pulse Power 50 list. He is a new entry in the list.

The highest new entry on this year’s list, Dr David Geddes is a GP with a powerful new role as national head of primary care commissioning for NHS England.

Appointed to the new role in December last year, he has already made his mark, first revealing to Pulse in May plans to radically scale back the QOF. He is also at the forefront of sorting out the practice payments chaos that has arisen with the handover of responsibility for primary care in England from PCTs to NHS England.

Approachable and less guarded than some of the other officials at NHS England headquarters in Leeds, he says that he took the job to achieve a ‘cultural shift’ in the provision of primary care - and to ensure that GPs get the credit that they are due.

‘NHS England is still in its early stages of development but I hope in my role I can support a cultural change whereby we are better able to celebrate our successes in primary care, and recognise the talent and achievements of our GP workforce,’ he says.

He will be heavily involved in implementing the policies arising from NHS England’s wide-ranging consultation on the future of primary care, drawing on his experience as a jobbing GP in York, where he lives with his wife and three children.

Dr Geddes says seeing patients one full day a week is what keeps him grounded. He admits that he struggles to balance the more mundane parts of the role - saying that ‘the sheer number of emails’ is the the worst part – but his job is only going to get more complicated over the coming year.

He hopes to encourage local area teams and CCGs to be more adventurous. ‘[I want them] to recognise that not everything will be an initial success, but that we can learn and develop from the experience of others,’ he says.

 


          

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