Healthcare delivery
First impressions of the 10-Year Health Plan
Kate Woodhead RGN DMS provides her first impressions of the government’s 10-Year Health Plan. She describes the Plan as ‘ambitious’ in its goals but finds that it is rather light on implementation and delivery timelines.
The government has, at last, published its 10-year Health Plan,1
which is full of aspiration
and ideas – many of which have appeared in previous plans. The speedy review undertaken by Lord D’Arzi, last year, has set the tone for much of the 10-Year Health Plan.2
His report
highlighted a great litany of issues with the NHS, some of which had been building for many years. He painted a bleak picture of the NHS – the system, he said, is in crisis. However, he also acknowledged that the problem was much broader than just the health service and included health inequalities, which are influenced by social, economic and environmental factors – such as income, housing and jobs. This has set the background for the identification of the solutions, which are outlined in the 10-Year Health Plan. Engagement with patients, staff and many stakeholders, since the general election, will have been fast and furious for the Plan to lay out so many ideas. At the heart of the Plan is the three shifts:
moving care into the community, changing from analogue to digital and shifting from treating sickness to prevention. In addition, there are sections on structures and operating models, workforce (and we expect another paper on Workforce later this year), care quality and the finances of healthcare.
Shifting care from hospitals to the community Probably the first impression one has is of the shift from hospitals into the creation of a Neighbourhood Health Service – moving some of the historically hospital-based services into the community – including diagnostics, post-operative care and rehabilitation. Neighbourhood teams composed of a number of professionals – such as nurses, doctors, social care workers, pharmacists, health visitors, palliative care staff and paramedics – will work from central health centres, starting with places where healthy life expectancy is lowest. The hubs will be designed to be a one-stop shop for patient care and are expected to work at least
twelve hours a day and six days a week. Neighbourhood teams will be empowered
by access to patient data so that, by the end of the plan, there will be remote monitoring using wearables – especially for preventative actions, chronic and post-acute care patients. The ultimate goal of home monitoring is to deliver virtual hospitals by increasing the delivery of hospitals-at-home by 2028. Community mental health services also get a mention with a scheme to transform community health services, to be available 24/7, building on the existing six pilots. The source of staffing for the new hubs is not yet clear and is not explained in the Plan.
With this shift from hospital to community,
the government aims that hospitals should be able to focus on providing world-class specialist care to those who need it. It is hoped that taking the pressure off hospitals by reducing demand they will have to do less firefighting. There is very little detail, however, on the implications for the finances of reducing hospital funding which has increased exponentially in the last few years, and how the backlog of patient treatment
from the pandemic will be handled, elements which are inextricably linked. The government certainly expects that community care will be cheaper than hospital care. The plan re-iterates election manifesto pledges to shore up GP services, cut bureaucratic red tape, and train thousands more GPs.
Digital transformation Digitalising healthcare both in hospitals and the community, as well as developing more patient power by developing the NHS App, is a central focus of the Plan and fundamental to many of the potential evolution plans. In 10 years’ time, the NHS aims to become the most AI-enabled healthcare system in the world, leveraging cutting-edge technology, robust data infrastructure and innovative solutions, to deliver more accessible, timely and high-quality care.3
The Plan identifies that patients will be
able to book and manage appointments, receive reminders, test results, health checks and provide performance data to enable informed care choices. With patient consent, data will be able to be securely shared across NHS
August 2025 I
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