NEIGHBOURHOOD HEALTH CENTRES Embedding health in planning decisions will be crucial
for the future success of the Neighbourhood Health Service and a review of the National Planning Policy Framework, currently underway following a consultation, will hopefully establish an early engagement process for better alignment of strategy and delivery. This is particularly pertinent given the government’s stated timescales – it has promised more than 100 NHCs will be open by 2030. Not only was there a pre-existing need for local plans to take account of health and primary care as important infrastructure to be delivered along with any new housing growth, but history has taught us that the business cases for community health hubs need to be shovel ready – immediately actionable and financially viable – if the teams on the ground are to move concepts to reality in a timely manner.
Waiting area at the NHS Blood and Transplant Donor Centre in Brixton.
Entrance to the NHS Blood and Transplant Donor Centre in Brixton.
And this is where the crux of the issue lies when it comes to turning policy into practice. There has always been a disconnect between healthcare service commissioning and delivery, and estate planning. In fact, planning consultancy Lichfields identified in research carried out last year that while 63 per cent of up-to-date local plans contain strategic policies with a high-level objective to improve health or healthcare, only around a quarter (26 per cent) actually featured specific site allocations or designations for the delivery of such projects. An effective framework is needed to plan for and deliver healthcare infrastructure, particularly at the level being promised in the 10 Year Health Plan for England, of which the Neighbourhood Rebuild programme is a key part. Robert Dibden, planning director at Lichfields, hits the nail on the head when he says that often securing funds for a healthcare project is understandably viewed as the priority when delivering healthcare infrastructure, with local planning requirements something of an afterthought. “It is often taken for granted that no-one is going to say building new healthcare facilities is a bad idea,” he says, “but this significantly over-simplifies what is now a complicated, statutory, multi-stage process and can be quite detrimental to programmes for the implementation of such critical infrastructure. Public consultation is a key part of the planning process, and to an extent dovetails quite neatly with clinical and other stakeholder engagement, and of course, yes, healthcare is an emotive issue and one the community can get behind. But underestimating the increasing complexity of the planning process thereafter, married to a lack of resource within local planning departments, can lead to delays, additional costs, and the risk of not being able to meet priorities set out in proposals.”
Guiding investment in physical estate assets Key to delivering the initial stage of the Neighbourhood Health Service vision is the release of underutilised estates and improved access to existing sites. But with the remainder of the centre network expected to be new-build facilities, thoughts need to turn to how we can prepare for that phase now. NHS England, NHS Providers, and NHS Confederation have all called for additional routes for infrastructure delivery to be made available to further support the repair and transformation of the NHS estate. Immediate plans will prioritise existing NHS Local
Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT) assets, which can be adapted at speed, while the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, supported by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), explores funding models for new builds. This includes a new public- private partnership (PPP) model, with the caveat that the government will only supplement public investment with private investment where it provides value for money to the taxpayer. But what are the non-financial barriers for stakeholders to overcome to see the projects through to delivery? As well as smarter alignment with planning systems, designers will need to consider time of delivery and certainty in operation. Could the New Hospital Programme give us some of the answers? Under this scheme, DHSC intends to build advanced
hospitals using a standardised design to reduce costs and improve operation. It has been working for some time to identify ways to improve the efficiency and quality of hospital construction, including through standardisation, modern methods of construction, and a centralised approach to contracting. Greater flexibility and autonomy over estate revenue and spending allocations have been called for by the NHS Confederation in relation to accelerating existing estate solutions for neighbourhood health centres. Whether or not this is achieved, specification and procurement, and the resulting need to build resilience into the supply chain, will be a major consideration to factor in for both the rebuild and new build parts of the programme. From a design perspective, flexible configurations will be essential for integrated healthcare facilities. Adaptable, modular environments are likely to figure highly to optimise layouts and support the allocation of space to different services at different times. Accessibility should be prioritised. The NHS Neighbourhood Rebuild was announced at the same time a £300m capital investment allocation was made to NHS tech and so this too must also be factored into how we future proof these new facilities. Integrating physical and virtual care environments will be new territory to some but the development of
150 Health Estate Journal October 2026
Carmelcrest
Carmelcrest
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