A former nurse will take control of the NHS in Sussex after being promoted from the top job in Brighton and Hove.
Amanda Fadero will oversee a period of change as the government abolishes primary care trusts (PCTs) and creates consortiums of family doctors, known as GP consortia.
She is currently chief executive of Brighton and Hove City Teaching PCT, also known as NHS Brighton and Hove.
As the chief executive designate of NHS Sussex she will oversee the consolidation of four PCTs – Brighton and Hove, East Sussex Downs and Weald, Hastings and Rother and West Sussex.
Her new Sussex-wide team is expected to start sharing its knowledge and expertise with GP consortia from April.
And the GP consortia – once the government’s Health and Social Care Bill is enacted into law – will then take on the job of planning and buying healthcare for their locality in place of the PCTs.
She said: “I am delighted to have been asked to lead the NHS in Sussex through the next couple of years of change as the NHS system moves from the current to new ways of working, with GPs at the helm.
“It is a critical job to ensure that as well as supporting GP colleagues for the future, we also have to focus on the delivery of health services in Sussex today.
“I am looking forward to building on the progress we have made across the county to deliver even better health and care for local residents.”
She joined NHS Brighton and Hove in June 2007 as director of quality and engagement and also worked as the director of strategy before becoming chief executive last April.
After qualifying as a nurse she specialised in paediatrics and neonatology for ten years.
She moved to Brighton and Hove in 1992, working in a variety of senior management posts at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust and studying part time for an MBA from Brighton University.