Who is Amanda Pritchard? NHS England chief executive quits in shock move - why is she stepping down and who will take over her role?

Her departure from the top job follows recent meetings she held with Wes Streeting, the health secretary, to discuss his plans to overhaul the service and her own future role. According to The Guardian, well-placed sources say her exit after three and a half years in the post is amicable and that she has not been forced out.

It will be confirmed in an official announcement this afternoon, which is expected to portray her stepping down as a voluntary decision after much consideration. However, it comes less than a month after two influential House of Commons committees made unusual criticisms of her suitability to lead the NHS.

The public accounts committee said that she, her deputy, Julian Kelly, and two senior civil servants at the Department of Health and Social Care were “complacent” and lacked dynamism. Barely 12 hours later, MPs on the health and social care committee went public with their doubts about Pritchard shortly after she had given two hours of evidence to them.

In a statement, the cross-party committee said she had not demonstrated that she had the “drive and dynamism” to transform the NHS in the radical and urgent way the government wanted. A lack of “sharpness” in her answers had left committee members “exasperated”, it added.

Pritchard will stay in post until April. James Mackey, the chief executive of the Newcastle upon Tyne hospitals NHS trust, will succeed her as interim chief executive. Many senior figures in the service expect that Mackey, who is widely admired in the NHS, would get the job permanently if he wanted it. Pritchard said her resignation had been a “hugely difficult” decision but would enable her successor to help deliver the government’s forthcoming 10-year NHS plan.