The Government has announced the 10-Year Health Plan for England: fit for the future, setting out how to reinvent the NHS through three radical shifts.
- Hospital to community
- Analogue to digital
- Sickness to prevention
At CWVA, we engaged extensively with the consultation for the 10-Year Health Plan, highlighting the invaluable role that can be played by the community sector to deliver this.
The plan aims to future-proof the NHS by:
- redesigning care models to provide a more integrated, patient-centred service
- expanding digital access, including online GP consultations and remote monitoring
- strengthening primary and community care, with GP practices working in networks to deliver broader services
- focusing on prevention and early intervention, especially for major health conditions like cancer, heart disease, and mental health
- addressing health inequalities by targeting support to underserved communities
- empowering patients through personal health budgets and social prescribing
- investing in workforce development and new technologies to improve care delivery.
The plan explicitly recognises the role of the community sector in achieving its goals, including some of the following opportunities.
- Social prescribing – over 2.5 million people will benefit from social prescribing within five years, and community sector organisations can partner with primary care networks (PCNs) to deliver non-clinical support.
- Community-based care – community sector organisations can support new community health teams by offering services that help people stay well at home and avoid hospitalisation.
- Health inequality reduction – community sector organisations with local knowledge and trust can help reach marginalised groups and codesign services that address specific community needs.
- Mental health and wellbeing – there is a strong emphasis on expanding mental health services, where community sector organisations can provide counselling, crisis support and recovery services.
- Patient empowerment – the plan supports personal health budgets and self-management tools, creating space for community sector organisations to offer coaching, education and advocacy.
- Partnership and coproduction – the NHS aims to work in partnership with the community sector to codesign services, share data and insights, and build sustainable local health ecosystems.
Community Partnerships, hosted and supported by CWVA, will be fundamental to the plan on a local level, complementing the work of the community sector more broadly.
There are seven Community Partnerships in Cheshire West, bringing together people and organisations from different sectors to understand, influence and address needs in their areas.
The plan presents some of the following the opportunities for Community Partnerships.
- Reinforce the role of Community Partnerships in delivering neighbourhood health goals, making sure the vision can be realised on a local level.
- Continue to strengthen relationships with PCNs, integrated neighbourhood teams (INTs) and the Integrated Care Board (ICB), with models like Let’s Talk as perfect examples of multi-sector prevention that the plan envisions.
- Promotecommunity-based pilots as early implementers of the plan’s prevention and locality goals, asking for scaling investment.
- Gathering and presenting community insight and case studies from Community Partnerships and Let’s Talk hubs to coproduce what is needed in communities.
If you’re interested in engaging with Community Partnerships, please email: rosemary.harrington@cwva.org.uk.
CWVA will continue to provide updates about the NHS 10-Year Health Plan in the coming weeks and months as more information becomes available and discussions at a local level progress.
