Dr David Geddes, qualified in 1987, and works as a GP in York. David began his management career in the days of GP fundholding, then moved through successive NHS re-organisations to become Medical Director and Director of Primary Care at North Yorkshire and York PCT.

As NHS England's director of primary care commissioning, his role is to help to shape a new, national primary care framework which provides proactive co-ordination of care, holistically addressing people’s needs, and ensuring both responsive access and better management of long term health needs. Working in the National Support Centre, he is responsible for ensuring that NHS England adopts a nationally consistent approach, whilst ensuring flexibility to allow meaningful commissioning at a local level.

Continuing to work one day a week in practice, David is familiar with the challenges facing primary care. His key priority for NHS England is to ensure we remain patient centered, making sure we listen and hear the ‘easy to ignore voice’; supporting innovation, - allowing the system to take risks, to try and accept that some will fail;  and to ensure we invest more in people than in plans to developing leadership in the NHS.

He lives in York with his wife and three children.