Sir John is a GP by background. His practice won several awards. This led to him being asked to create and head the National Primary Care Collaborative which launched in February 2000. At the time the Primary Care Collaborative was the largest improvement programme in the world covering 32 million patients in 40 months. He designed a similar programme in Scotland, Australia and other countries. In 2003 Sir John also created the concept of the award winning Healthy Communities Collaborative with residents of deprived areas as the improvement team members, now spread throughout Scandinavia (as Passion for Life) and winning an EU award. He also worked in Education, successfully raising performance of underperforming pupils in 400 schools He has been a keynote speaker at many international conferences on large system change, quality and safety and has spoken at Davos and Bilderberg meetings. He was a member of the National Quality Board , National Clinical Lead for Quality and Productivity at the Dept of Health in England and subsequently Chair of an Independent Commission on Whole Person Care. He was Senior Independent director at the Care Quality Commission in England until the pandemic, then Chair of UKMed, a charity that is the UK emergency medical response for disasters, and in 2023 an advisor on NHS reform to the then Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care until the general election. He is currently Strategic Advisor to the Secretary of State.