A former GP, Dame Barbara Hakin is responsible for implementing the Government's reforms as national director of commissioning development at the NHS Commissioning Board – focusing on authorisation of CCGs.
This year, she oversaw the development of the final list of 212 CCGs to be authorised, flushing out those that were too small to be financially viable.
She has also helped clarify exactly what CCGs need for authorisation, saying she will be ‘bending over backwards' to ensure most are authorised with the minimum number of conditions.
In May, she revealed 35 CCGs had chosen to be assessed in the first wave of applications for authorisation as well as controversial new guidance on local enhanced services, which said they should be opened up to ‘any qualified provider' unless they were of ‘limited value' or GPs were the ‘only capable providers'.
A forthright and skilled operator, Dame Barbara will be an experienced pair of hands for NHS Commissioning Board chair Sir David Nicholson to rely on. After 20 years as a GP, Dame Barbara moved into a full-time management role as the chief executive of Bradford South and West Primary Care Trust in 2000, before moving to NHS East Midlands as chief executive in 2006 and becoming lead GMS negotiator for NHS Employers.
