The Government has published its new Ten Year Plan for the NHS. The overall aim of the Plan is “to bring the NHS closer to home”. You can download a full copy of the Plan by clicking here.
Three key shifts
The 10 Year Health Plan aims to get the NHS back on its feet and to make it fit for the future, delivered through three big shifts:
- From hospital to community; transforming healthcare with easier GP appointments, extended neighbourhood health centres, better dental care, quicker specialist referrals, convenient prescriptions, and round-the-clock mental health support – all designed to bring quality care closer to home.
- From analogue to digital; creating a seamless healthcare experience through digital innovation, with a unified patient record eliminating repetition, AI-enhanced doctor services and specialist self-referrals via the NHS app, a digital red book for children’s health information, and online booking that ensures equitable NHS access nationwide.
- From sickness to prevention; shifting to preventative healthcare by making healthy choices easier—banning energy drinks for under-16s, offering new weight loss services, introducing home screening kits, and providing financial support to low-income families.
Neighbourhood Health Services
Neighbourhood Health Services will be rolled out across the country, bringing diagnostics, mental health, post-op, rehab, and nursing to people’s doorsteps.
Neighbourhood teams will include staff like nurses, doctors, social care workers, pharmacists, health visitors, palliative care staff, and paramedics. Community health workers and volunteers will play a pivotal role in these teams, and local areas will be encouraged to trial innovative schemes like community outreach door-to-door – to detect early signs of illness and reduce pressure on GPs and A&E.
Neighbourhood health centres will house services under one roof, open at evenings and weekends.
The Plan for Change will rebuild the NHS to train thousands more family doctors, transform hospital outpatient appointments, and provide personalised care plans for complex needs.
Millions of patients will be treated and cared for closer to their home by new teams of health professionals.
Digital by default in GP practices
The status quo of ‘hospital by default’ will end, with a new preventative principle that care should happen as locally as it can: digital-by-default, in a patient’s home where possible, in a neighbourhood health centre when needed, in a hospital if necessary.
This approach will make access to healthcare more convenient for patients and easier to fit around their day to day lives, rather than disrupting people’s work and personal lives.
The aim of the Plan is to bring the NHS into the digital age, making sure staff benefit from the advantages and efficiencies available from new technology. This includes rolling out new tools over the next two years to support GPs. AI scribes will end the need for clinical notetaking, letter drafting, and manual data entry to free up clinicians’ time to focus on treating patients. The Government will also use digital telephony so all phone calls to GP practices are answered quickly. For those who need it, they will get a digital or telephone consultation the same day they request it
