Prof Powis was speaking during a conference on prevention at The King's Fund in London this week.

He said there ‘had never been a more pressing time for prevention in health'.

Prof Powis said the NHS needed to ‘much more pre-emptive' in its work in the community, adding: ‘We need to organise differently as a health system much more focused on multiple conditions.'

He said the way towards better prevention required more use of innovation and technology as well as empowering people to better manage their own health through systems such as the NHS App.

The NHS leader said healthcare was also dependent on a well-functioning social care system.

He said the NHS had a key role to play in supporting primary prevention at a population level through supporting government legislation such as the Tobacco & Vapes Bill and had made ‘great progress' on its national programmes on respiratory illness, stroke, cardiovascular, diabetes, obesity and prevention.

Concluding, Prof Powis said: ‘We can, when we put our minds to it, get this to work. There's more to do by going harder and faster on the things we are already doing but also on innovating and ensuring we find new ways of focusing on prevention.

‘If we do that I think there is a good chance that we can make a real impact on the challenge we all face.'