The Greater Manchester Proactive and Personalised Care Programme was delivered by Greater Manchester Primary Care Provider Board (GMPCB) and NHS Greater Manchester (NHS GM), in partnership with Peak Health Coaching.
You can find out more about the people involved below.
Dr Nikesh Vallabh
Nikesh Vallabh is a GP partner at South Wigan Medical Practice in Wigan and serves as the Clinical Director for SWAN Primary Care Network.
Nikesh has been active in primary care workforce development through efforts to support recruitment, retention, and training as the Greater Manchester Primary Care Workforce Clinical Lead, across all primary care disciplines.
Alongside this, Nikesh is also the Greater Manchester Proactive Care Clinical Lead, a role which focuses on improving patient outcomes through early intervention delivered by integrated Multi-Disciplinary Teams (MDTs) at neighbourhood level to address health inequalities within our communities.
Andrew Binnie
Andrew is an experienced NHS programme manager, currently serving as Programme Manager at Greater Manchester Primary Care Provider Board (GMPCB).
He led the design, delivery, and strategic oversight of the Greater Manchester Proactive and Personalised Care Programme, working in partnership with NHS Greater Manchester and national bodies.
His work focuses on supporting Primary Care Networks (PCNs) across Greater Manchester to develop proactive population health interventions targeting dementia, frailty, and high intensity users – a mission involving a mix of virtual and face-to-face workshops, and network learning sessions.
As part of GMPCB’s delivery team, he collaborates with colleagues to embed a proactive care ethos across primary care systems.
Andrew has more than 20 years’ experience working in health and programme management. He has delivered programmes at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, East Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group, and Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust.
Dr Joanna Bircher MB ChB FRCG
Joanna Bircher is a GP in Greater Manchester.
She is Clinical Director of Greater Manchester GP Excellence Programme, Clinical Lead for Quality Improvement at NHS Greater Manchester: Tameside locality, a Generation Q Fellow of the Health Foundation and a Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) Clinical Adviser.
She has a Masters degree in Leadership for Quality Improvement from Ashridge Business School and is co-author of the RCGP Guide to Quality Improvement.
Her particular interest is in making established QI methodology relevant and accessible for primary care and encouraging all who work within healthcare to develop their leadership skills.
In 2020, she co-authored ‘The Leadership Hike: Shaping Primary Care Together’ published by CRC Press, followed by the companion book ‘Leading Primary Care – Tales from the Leadership Hikers’ in 2024.
Lynn Marsland
Lynn is a seasoned Human Resources (HR) and Organisational Development (OD) professional, having achieved her career goal of operating at Board level as an executive director of HR, Workforce and OD within several organisations in the NHS.
Lynn is experienced in working across the broad health and social care sector, including acute, primary care, mental health, local authority social care, Voluntary Community Faith and Social Enterprise (VCFSE) organisations, along with private healthcare providers.
In her early career, Lynn led the design, development and delivery of leadership and management development courses for individuals across all levels, ranging from first-time leaders to board and executive team levels, spanning both public and private sectors. She also led and facilitated various OD projects, such as company mergers and acquisitions, along with service redesign work.
Dr Aseem Mishr
Aseem is an academic GP at Bowland Medical Practice, Wythenshawe and Clinical Lead for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention (CVD) at the Greater Manchester Integrated Care Board (ICB).
He works at the intersection of healthcare, technology, and human behaviour, using health informatics, systems thinking, and behavioural science to deliver real-world change.
Through the Greater Manchester CVD Prevention programme, he has led initiatives including the CVNeed analytics approach, Greater Manchester’s cardiovascular clinical guidelines, the System Transformational Fund, and primary care incentive schemes.
His work is grounded in a whole-systems, complexity-informed approach, aimed at reducing unwarranted variation, tackling inequalities, and translating rich data into practical, equitable improvements in population health.
Dr Ollie Hart
Dr Ollie Hart is a GP from Sheffield, where he is the Clinical Director for a Primary Care Network, covering 42,000 patients.
He has a core professional interest in person-centred care. Over the last 10 years he has held a range of national roles in this area, co-chairing NHS England’s strategy board for supported self-management, and being a national champion for the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) in their Collaborative Care and Support Planning programme, clinical lead for personalised care for the NHS in Sheffield, and a member of South Yorkshire Social Prescribing Board.
He is a Director for Peak Health Coaching, a company that specialises in health coaching training and organisational development for person-centred care. Peak Health Coaching was the first company nationally to be accredited for Health Coaching training by the NHS’s Personalised Care Institute, and has trained more than 2,000 people in coaching skills.
He is one of two global health and wellbeing ambassadors for ‘parkrun’.
If not at his standing desk, Ollie is most at home running or biking in the Peak District.
