44. Professor Richard Hobbs

Professor Hobbs makes another appearance in the Power 50 this year. Praised for being an ‘inspirational academic, leading world class research’ by Pulse readers, he has influenced national guidelines by showing NICE should reduce the BNP threshold for GP referral of suspected heart failure from 400 to 125 pg/ml.

Professor of Primary care at the University of Oxford and National Director of the NIHR School for Primary Care Research his analysis of GP and nurse consultations to date, published in the Lancet, was praised by GP leaders as providing ‘real evidence’ of the current crisis in general practice after he showed that workload has increased by 16% from 2007 to 2014 and patients are seeing their GP 14% more than they did seven years ago.

Professor Hobbs is also chair of the European Primary Care Cardiovascular Society and hopes to continue to make an impact next year whilst ensuring he can still deliver clinical sessions at his Birmingham practice which is part of the Modality super practice.

And all this from someone who says he never imagined being a GP would be such a rewarding job and instead thought he would be an inner city GP for ‘short term societal payback for my education’. But he hasn’t looked back since.

Why influential: Has helped shape national guidelines and patient care

Surprising fact: The first Pulse GP Driver of the Year, winning a car in 1986