Summary
Dr Tracey Vell MBE leaves a 40-year legacy of NHS service.
Dr Tracey Vell MBE, has announced that she is due to retire from the NHS and as Chief Officer of the Greater Manchester Primary Care Provider Board (GMPCB).
Since starting at medical school, Tracey has spent an outstanding 40 years in NHS service.
She has held various leadership positions over this period and retires at the end of September.
Her leadership journey began as a GP registrar representative with Manchester Local Medical Committee (LMC).
When she became a GP partner at Surrey Lodge Practice, she continued as Manchester LMC executive, chair and chief executive throughout her career in general practice.
She started one of the early pioneering GP co-operatives, MANDOC (MANchester Drs On Call), persuading colleagues to collaborate and form a company to deliver on-call general practice, which allowed less onerous hours and less duplication of activity.
This merged with Stockport Drs on Call, for a period of time, and ultimately created Mastercall.
Other leadership roles included working for the North West Deanery as course organiser, educating GP registrars for seven years – and many of the registrars she trained have become leaders themselves.
For six years she held the role of medical director at Health Innovation Manchester (HInM) while also running GMPCB.
She was also instrumental in bringing new services and medicines directly to primary care, including leading national work with NHS England and pharmaceutical companies and expanding population health.
In addition, Tracey has published many academic papers on the national inclisiran lipid management programme.
Working as a GP partner in an inner-city practice for 32 years, alongside her other roles, has enabled Tracey to understand health and life inequalities and develop a passion to improve the life outcomes of many deprived populations in Greater Manchester.
She took these qualities into her senior role with the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership during devolution in 2015, and formed GMPCB the same year.
GMPCB was the country’s first primary care collaborative, bringing together all four primary care disciplines across community pharmacy, dentistry, general practice and optometry, and has recently celebrated its 10th anniversary.
Tracey said: “As I move into retirement, I’d like to thank all the people I have worked alongside over the years, who have both inspired me and supported me.
“It’s an exciting time for the NHS and I hope we can make great strides in improving the service we deliver to our population.”
