North West London ICB has defined next steps and key priorities to accelerate neighbourhood health across the region, with a focus on agreements for data sharing, accelerating the spread of proven care models, and driving the move from reactive to proactive care.
There are seven place partnerships in NWL: Brent, Harrow, Hillingdon, Bi-borough, Hammersmith and Fulham, Hounslow, and Ealing. All seven now have place managing directors in post, and the ICB reports that six have submitted applications for the neighbourhood health implementation programme. A joint ICB and community collaborative programme office has been established, and approval has been received for the Better Care Fund, with £5 million in efficiency savings achieved “aligned to neighbourhood health”.
Since the last update, “the focus has shifted from design to delivery”, NWL states. “All seven place managing directors are now leading local partnerships with governance and integrator arrangements in development. One model of care – children’s health – is demonstrating measurable impact and is being rolled out.” Other care models are currently being confirmed, or are in proof of concept phases, including cardio-renal metabolic (CRM) and end-of-life care.
On digital and data, a neighbourhood health dashboard has been launched to help staff identify high-risk groups, with work ongoing to increase its uptake and use. Data sharing agreements are in place across all seven place partnerships, and population health management training academy modules have been developed to promote analytical capability and skills for data-driven decision making. By March 2026, the ICB hopes to have developed a risk stratification approach, expand the use of existing tools for record sharing, the Universal Care Plan and One London, and increased the number of residents supported through the LTC digital platform from 65,000 to 100,000.
Other key digital and data focuses for 2025/26 cover increasing digital adoption to enable residents to self-manage through the NHS App and My Health London, and putting a NWL data sharing agreement in place along with standardised IG processes to enable data sharing across agencies. By March 2027, the ICB aims for the Federated Data Platform to enable real-time data to strengthen neighbourhood-based care, NWL says, whilst a commissioning framework will be implemented “following clarity of national contractual models for neighbourhoods”.
In terms of leadership and governance, by March 2026 the ICB commits to putting together a place strategy group including representatives from key strategic partners across the region, reporting that the development of a primary care collaborative is underway. It also plans for an ICB operating model refresh to strengthen neighbourhood delivery. Focuses to March 2027 will then be on improving change capacity, building trusted relationships across partners, and developing new contracting models.
Also shared are achievements for NWL in moving from reactive to proactive care, with the ICB pointing to early impacts from its frailty and child health models of care, the launch of a WSIC frailty dashboard, and the approval of a frailty development framework. Early adopters are in place, and six core community specifications have been agreed to align with neighbourhood models of care.
Over the next six months the focus will be on developing primary care enhanced single services, as well as the frailty business case for Hospital at Home, with the ICB also looking to complete economic modelling on existing and proposed care models. Beyond that, to March 2027, NWL services will be transformed to deliver proactive models of care, with the ICB making the commitment to invest capacity and time to allow primary and community care to focus on proactive, rather than reactive models. New ways of working will be adopted system-wide, moving “beyond pilots to consistent delivery”, and the spread of proven models like frailty and children’s health will be accelerated.
Wider trend: neighbourhood health
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”. Work on developing key enablers uncovered specific needs around workforce, interfaces, population health management, inequalities, access, technology, and the flow of resources.
NHS England issued an open invitation calling for participation in the first wave of the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme in July. Explaining the shift in culture, resource allocation and ways of working as “mission critical”, NHSE set out the programme as a means of building on successes to date, accelerating current work, sharing solutions and encouraging working at scale. The NNHIP’s initial focus will be on developing neighbourhood health systems and processes for those with multiple long-term conditions and rising risk, with NHSE to work with places to establish new ways of working and associated enablers.
43 neighbourhood health services were announced in September 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.
