43 neighbourhood health services have been announced as part of wave one sites, supported with £10 million in funding.
The programme has an initial focus on long-term conditions, the government shared, with the expectation to expand to more services over the course of the next year.
The aim is to bring health and care services such as diagnostics, mental health, outpatients, post-op, rehab, nursing, and social care closer to home, where services target the lowest life expectancies and longest waits to help tackle health inequalities.
GP leaders will be pivotal in shaping and delivering the new services, the announcement notes, supported by new voluntary neighbourhood health contracts from 2026 to work over larger areas, with the option to be part of either a single neighbourhood or multi-neighbourhood provider.
Each of the 43 identified areas are to be allocated a programme lead to work with existing local services to develop a neighbourhood health team consisting of community nurses, hospital doctors, social care workers, pharmacists, dentists, optometrists, paramedics, social prescribers, local government organisations and the voluntary sector.
In London, a community health scheme succeeded in lowering A&E admissions by seven percent and hospital admissions by 10 percent; whilst in Cornwall, a similar initiative reduced unplanned GP appointments by seven percent, increased the likelihood of vaccination (47 percent), cancer screening and NHS health checks (82 percent).
Ruth Rankine, primary care director and neighbourhood lead at the NHS Confederation, said the rollout marks the start of “a major and very important shift in how care is delivered”. Ruth added: “This programme provides a vital opportunity to build on the strengths of local partnerships, community assets, and frontline innovation and we look forward to supporting systems and neighbourhoods in sharing learning, scaling best practice, and ensuring that improvements are inclusive, sustainable, and driven by the voices of local people.”
The 43 areas selected include:
- South and West Hertfordshire (Decorum and Hertsmere)
- North East Essex
- Ipswich and East Suffolk
- Barking and Dagenham
- Hillingdon
- Lambeth and Southwark
- Croydon
- Walsall
- Coventry
- Shropshire
- Leicestershire (West)
- Nottingham City
- North East Lincolnshire
- Stockton
- Rotherham
- Bradford and Craven (Bradford South, Keighley and Airedale)
- Sefton
- Rochdale
- Blackburn and Darwen
- East Berkshire and Slough
- Portsmouth
- East Kent
- East Surrey (Surrey Downs)
- Bristol (South Bristol)
- Cornwall and The Isles Of Scilly
- Dorset Place (Weymouth)
- West Essex
- West Suffolk
- Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster
- East Birmingham
- Solihull
- Herefordshire
- Sunderland
- Doncaster
- Wakefield
- Leeds (Hatch, South, East)
- St Helens
- Stockport
- Buckinghamshire (North, High Wycombe, Marlow Beaconsfield)
- East Sussex (Hastings and Rother)
- Woodspring
- Morecambe Bay
- Fenland, Peterborough and East, Peterborough
Digital in supporting new operating models
For a recent HTN Now webinar, we were joined by a panel of experts to discuss the role of digital in supporting NHS reform – modernising services, shifting from hospital to community, and supporting the move from reactive to proactive care. Panel members shared their insight and experience from a wide range of digital projects, highlighting what worked well and their learnings; how their organisations are currently tackling key challenges such as capacity and demand, and managing waiting lists; and balancing risk with innovation.
The UK government has published its Fit for the Future: The 10 Year Health Plan for England, aiming to “build a truly modern NHS”, with focus on moving from hospital to community, analogue to digital and sickness to prevention. The plan sets out a new operating model, a new era of transparency, a new workforce model with staff aligned to the direction, a reshaped innovation strategy, and a different approach to NHS finances.
London’s five ICBs, along with NHS England London Region and the wider London Health and Care Partnership, have joined together to issue a ‘target operating model’ for neighbourhood health in the London region, based on engagement across the capital which highlighted a desire for more accessible and consistent care and using new technologies “where appropriate”.
