The NHS 10 Year Plan now live
On Thursday 3rd July, the UK Government shared the 10 Year Health Plan for England which sets out a new course for the NHS to guarantee its sustainability for the future.
The Plan seizes the opportunities provided by new technology, medicines, and innovation to deliver better care for all patients.
Through the NHS’s three shifts – from hospital to community, from analogue to digital, and from treatment to prevention – the Plan aims to personalise care, give more power to patients, and ensure that the best of the NHS is available to all.
What’s in the plan?
- From hospital to community: Neighbourhood Health Service will bring care into the places people live and abolish the default of a 'one size fits all' care. It will also transform access to general practice and prevent unnecessary hospital admissions.
- From analogue to digital: The Plan hopes to create the most digitally accessible health system in the world, where patients have a ‘doctor in their pocket’ to provide 24/7 advice and guidance.
- From sickness to prevention: The Plan wants to tackle the growing gap in healthy life expectancy between the rich and the poor by addressing the core issue of ill health that include social and economic factors.
- A devolved NHS: The new operating model will devolve power from the centre to local providers, frontline staff and patients. Integrated Care Boards will be strategic commissioners of local health services, including neighbourhood health services, with a focus on population health outcomes and financial sustainability.
- Transformative technologies that will drive our new model of care by aligning research, investment and innovation. This includes data to deliver impact, AI, predictive analytics for pre-emptive care, we are able to make care ‘real-time’, and robotics to support precision.
A Neighbourhood Health Service
The 10 Year Health Plan sets out how we will shift towards a Neighbourhood Health Service, bringing care into the places people live. Neighbourhood health will mean more proactive, joined-up health and social care services -designed around people's lives, not around the system. It also means putting unpaid carers at the heart of our plan.
Neighbourhood health providers will work closely with local government, the voluntary sector and social care providers to tailor services to local needs.
GM Live Well - Greater Manchester’s movement for community-led health and wellbeing - is mentioned in the Plan as an example of a devolved whole system working in a place to grow consistent, community-led, preventative models of support, improving lives for individuals and communities.
The Role of the VCFSE sector
The VCFSE sector is mentioned throughout the Plan which is positive to see. But flexible commissioning and investment in the VCFSE sector will be key in terms of providing long term sustainability for all partners in the system.
The Plan also lacks some detail on how the VCFSE sector will be included in developing solutions to the crisis faced by the NHS. Whilst the plan clearly recognises that a whole system approach is needed, it is lacking detail around how these plans will be delivered with the support of vital partners, including the VCFSE sector.
Voluntary Sector North West (VSNW) have shared a very useful blog that sets out potential opportunities for the voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise (VCFSE) sector within the 10 Year Plan.
Read the 10 Year Plan in full: www.gov.uk/government/publications/10-year-health-plan-for-england-fit-for-the-future
