NEIGHBOURHOOD HEALTH CENTRES
Ensuring the success of neighbourhood health
The NHS Neighbourhood Rebuild Programme is an ambitious proposal to transform where and how patients access the healthcare they need through community-based infrastructure. Central to this shift from hospital care to community care is the creation of a network of 250 neighbourhood health centres. A plan to provide personalised and convenient healthcare in the local community is hard to argue against, so how can organisations now tasked to establish this new model ensure place-based care is a success? Sainaja Feroz, associate of architecture at Pick Everard, says the planning and design process will be the bridge between strategy and delivery.
With promises from the government that 120 new Neighbourhood Health Centres (NHCs) will be operational by 2030, the NHS Neighbourhood Rebuild announcement could be viewed as a test of the reflexes. Going hand in hand with service and efficiency reforms, this ‘new generation’ of NHCs is said to be fundamental to cutting NHS waiting times and ending a postcode lottery of healthcare access. But while the concepts of integrated teams and moving care closer to home are by no means original in NHS primary and secondary care circles, applying ‘without walls’ thinking to physical and environmental assets – in the time scales suggested – is, to some extent, new territory. We know it can be done – the pandemic taught us that. But did we learn enough to retain that agility within the systems and processes we apply day-to- day, during what has once again become normal circumstances? The government seems to be of the mindset that
achieving the end goal starts with evaluating current resources and formulating a roadmap based on this early utilisation. The NHC ‘one stop shops’ will bring a combination of services, from GPs, nurses, dentists, and pharmacists, together under one roof to best meet the needs of the community. As more outpatient care is moved out of hospitals, these centres will go on to provide space for clinics, enabling patients to get treatment minutes from home instead of travelling miles to often hard to reach hospitals. They will also link in with Voluntary, Community, and Social Enterprise (VCSE) services, addressing factors such as lifestyle and emotional support in a more holistic approach to health and wellbeing. They could even extend to providing space for local authority hubs. In the first instance, the NHS Neighbourhood Rebuild
programme will deliver NHCs through a mixture of refurbishments to expand and improve existing sites over the next three years. A series of new-build facilities are then due to open in the medium term, with public-private partnerships underpinning construction schemes. It is very clear that this is by no means a programme that solely relies on the NHS to drive improvements. Facilities and estate managers should already be looking to increase and maximise opportunities for collaboration with planning teams and design partners to progress NHCs at scale and pace. This is a ‘community’ project in both the literal and societal sense of the word.
Building communities for health prevention When considering how to ensure everyone’s voices, perspectives, and experiences are included in a decision- making process, the first question to ask at the initial planning stage is ‘who is not in the room?’ And with the launch of a transformative programme such as the Neighbourhood Rebuild programme, we should be thinking along the same lines, asking ‘what, among all the headline announcements, is not being said?’
NHS Blood and Transplant Donor Centre in Brixton.
The NHS Neighbourhood Rebuild programme will deliver NHCs through a mixture of refurbishments to expand and improve existing sites over the next three years. A series of new-build facilities are then due to open in the medium term, with public-private partnerships underpinning construction schemes.
October 2026 Health Estate Journal 149
Carmelcrest
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