Dame Barbara Hakin has been both a Primary Care Trust and Strategic Health Authority Chief Executive. Dame Barbara latterly served as Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officer of NHS England, responsible for overseeing all national performance, with oversight of CCGs through the regional teams as well as specialised commissioning and all primary care commissioning and contracting. She has worked closely with Ministers and policymakers for almost two decades.
In her early career, she spent twenty years as a General Practitioner, moving on to be the Clinical Chair of Bradford Primary Care Group, then Chief Executive of the Primary Care Trust. During this time, she was instrumental in many initiatives which widened the role of all primary care professionals and moved care into the primary care setting, including community pharmacy.