From Ambition to Action: Prevention, Leadership and the Future of Primary Care

On Thursday 26th February, at the Business Services Hub of the Best Practice Show, the Global Policy Network convened a focused and timely panel session:

From Ambition to Action: Making Prevention Deliverable in Primary Care.

More than a discussion, the session marked the official launch of Primary Care Roundtable Report 1, the first in a series examining how to translate prevention policy into operational reality. Chairing the conversation was our CEO, Ameneh Saatchi, who guided the room with clarity, urgency and a steady focus on implementation.

Why This Conversation Matters Now

Prevention has become a defining ambition in UK health policy. But ambition alone is not reform.

Across primary care, structural and contractual misalignments continue to fragment delivery. Workforce pressures are intensifying. Digital transformation is accelerating, but unevenly. Voluntary and community sector partners are increasingly recognised as essential, yet remain financially unstable.

The question we posed was simple:

How do we make prevention deliverable without adding administrative burden?

A Grounded, Real World Conversation

Ameneh opened the session by reframing prevention not as a new programme, but as a redesign challenge. Prevention, she emphasised, must:

• Be embedded into existing workflows

• Shift funding and authority alongside workload

• Reduce friction rather than create new reporting layers

• Protect human connection at the heart of care

The discussion that followed was candid and system aware.

1. Prevention in a High Risk Environment

Dr. Jihad Malasi grounded the conversation in frontline reality. Practices and Primary Care Networks are already carrying operational and financial risk, often without full control. If prevention simply moves pressure earlier in the pathway without shifting resources or risk ownership, it becomes deferred workload rather than reform.

One insight resonated strongly in the room:

Stability matters more than short term innovation funding.

2. Digital as Delivery Infrastructure

Digital transformation featured prominently, but not as a buzzword.

The panel explored what it truly means for digital to function as delivery infrastructure rather than an added administrative layer.

Where digital works well, it:

• Shortens pathways

• Reduces handovers

• Removes unnecessary appointments

• Improves interoperability across settings, including community pharmacy

Where it fails, it:

• Redistributes work out of sight

• Underestimates staff training and implementation cost

• Risks widening inequalities if access is uneven

The conclusion was clear. Digital equity must be cohesive and system wide, not optional or piecemeal.

3. Community and VCSE: Trusted but Underpowered

Voluntary, community and faith sector organisations are increasingly central to upstream prevention, especially in behavioural and social interventions.

Yet they are too often funded through short cycles, holding delivery risk without long term stability.

The discussion highlighted a pressing need for:

• Joint health and social care funding approaches

• Protected and consistent contracts

• Commissioning models that enable stable, preventative partnerships

Prevention cannot be outsourced to instability.

Key Themes from the Report Launch

Primary Care Roundtable Report 1 sets out practical recommendations, including:

• Greater alignment across primary care contractor groups within system level planning

• Shared outcome measures for prevention and population health

• Support for federated, at scale models enabled through aligned commissioning rather than mandate

• Recognition that prevention must reduce administrative burden, it should not increase it

The message throughout was pragmatic. If prevention adds to the paperwork, it will be postponed. If it removes friction, it will be adopted.

Leadership in Action

As Chair, Ameneh ensured the conversation remained focused not on aspiration, but on feasibility.

She closed the session by reminding the audience that prevention is not a slogan. It is a systems challenge requiring alignment, stability, trust and political honesty about risk.

At Global Policy Network, our work is to bridge the space between policy ambition and implementation reality. This panel was a clear example of that mission in action.

The future of primary care will not be shaped by rhetoric. It will be shaped by what systems are realistically enabled to deliver. And that work continues.

To read all of our reports, visit www.globalpolicynetwork.com/reports