Next Steps for Community Centric Care Following the 10 Year Plan Post Date : September 18, 2025 News 4 minutes read Steve Morley, CHEC’s Chief Partnerships Officer, shares his reflections on the King’s Fund discussion on the 10 Year Health Plan and recent developments in community centric care. As we approach the winter months, those of us working in healthcare know only too well the additional pressures the season will place on our NHS. At present, the NHS faces a multitude of challenges both external and internal. The UK’s ageing population presents an ever-increasing challenge with the need for the NHS to pivot towards a preventative care model which reduces the treatment burden on patients while successfully managing those long-term health conditions associated with age. Meanwhile the current system, with its at times overly complex structure, does not allow those individuals and organisations within it to operate at their best. That’s why it was great to attend the recent King’s Fund discussion on the 10 Year Health Plan, and discuss with colleagues how we can take it forward to deliver the improvements in care which Trusts need. Neighbourhood Health Services Since the foundation of CHEC, partnering with the NHS has been a central tenet of the business, to expand capacity, reduce pressure on acute services, and deliver care closer to home. That is why I was delighted to see the Government’s announcement that it will invest £10 million to roll out neighbourhood health services in 43 local areas, and to hear directly from the Health Secretary on how he intends for this new initiative to put power back into the hands of patients and learn from local best practice. The plans for the Neighbourhood Health Services also provide a perfect example of how the NHS and independent providers can work together for the benefit of patients. The programme lead for each area will work with practitioners such as pharmacists, dentists, optometrists, social prescribers, local government organisations and the voluntary sector to meet patient needs closer to home. As these collaborations are expanded, they not only provide a robust model for collaboration but also provide reassurance to patients and the wider public that independence and integration can coexist to bring additional capacity into the healthcare system and provide enhanced care. Shifting From Hospital Centric To Community Centric Care At CHEC we are strongly committed to increasing the accessibility of care for those who need it most, through our local delivery capabilities. The critical services we provide in our local community healthcare centres mean we help provide quality, timely care within NHS systems, closer to patients’ homes. As the NHS looks to shift from a hospital centric to a community centric model of care, it would benefit from looking to the examples from across the country where this has been successfully implemented. It was a pleasure to hear from the Mayor of Greater Manchester, the Rt Hon Andy Burnham, on the lessons from his region’s health devolution journey and the need for locally based leadership in healthcare. Amplifying Patients’ Voices One of the biggest advantages of the shift to community focused care is the opportunity it presents to put patients’ voices front and centre, which is a key value of CHEC, and listening to these voices will be key if the implementation of the Neighbourhood Health Services plan is to be a success. It was this message first and foremost that I took away from the King’s Fund discussion – the need for Government, the current healthcare system, and local providers to come together with communities to come up with plans to deliver effective local care that will improve patient outcomes and reduce the burden on the NHS in the long run. The most effective way to communicate at scale with patients and communities is through greater utilisation of the existing NHS app – three-quarters of the population have the app, with one in five logging in every month, and 56m logins in July 2025 alone. Greater data transparency, presented in a more user-friendly way, will allow patients to make informed choices about their healthcare, and ultimately to provide local level feedback that shifts our healthcare services from cookie cutter to custom-fit for each community. CHEC stands ready to play our part, and we are proud to partner with and support the NHS to invest in communities at a local level and strengthen the healthcare ecosystem for the future.