Update on neighbourhood care
Senior system leaders from all providers (including primary care) across Northamptonshire met on the 23rd July to discuss how plans for providing integrated neighbourhood care can be developed to improve outcomes for the population and bring care closer to home. It was collectively agreed that Northamptonshire will have 2 places (West Northamptonshire and North Northamptonshire) and we will start to develop approaches across 9 agreed neighbourhoods.
These are:
- Corby
- Kettering
- East Northamptonshire
- Wellingborough
- Northampton Central
- Northampton North and East
- Northampton South and West
- Rural East and South
- Rural North and West
This is a key component to help us deliver the NHS ten-year plan. The NHS ten-year-plan was published on 3rd July 2025, it follows on from Lord Darzi’s independent investigation into the NHS (Sep 2024). There is an emerging opportunity to work with NHS England in one of our ‘places’ with our neighbourhoods and to apply that learning in our other ‘place’ and neighbourhoods. We are now completing a system application for West Northamptonshire place and neighbourhoods to be part of this initial wave with NHS England. We will locally support North Northamptonshire to achieve the same.
The 10-year plan describes three key transformation shifts to support the NHS to thrive, these are:
From hospital to community: More care closer to home, with Neighbourhood Health Services and co-located centres open 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. Two-thirds of outpatient appointments will shift to digital alternatives, while 95% of complex patients will have universal care plans by 2027.
From analogue to digital: A Single Patient Record accessible through the NHS App by 2028 will become the “front door” to the NHS, supporting AI-powered diagnostics, medicine management, and care planning. New AI tools being tested on the Federated Data Platform, which connects information across healthcare settings and links siloed sources, which can reduce the time spent on paperwork and allow each doctor to treat more patients during a shift.
From treatment to prevention: The plan aims to create a smoke-free generation, tackle obesity, reduce alcohol harm, and eliminate cervical cancer by 2040 while increasing access and uptake of screening services via the Neighbourhood Health Service and scaling genomic and predictive analytics to support prevention.
Underpinning these are five enabling reforms:
- A new operating model, merging NHS England with DHSC, empowering ICBs as strategic commissioners, and reintroducing earned autonomy for high-performing NHS organisations.
- Enhanced transparency of quality of care, publishing league tables of providers and patient experience measures, revitalising the National Quality Board as the single authority on quality, and implementing AI-led warning systems to identify at-risk services based on clinical data.
- Workforce transformation, focusing on AI-enabled productivity, advanced practice roles, ultra-flexible contracts, and technology to release £13bn worth of staff time.
- Innovation and technology with five areas such as AI, data, genomics, robotics, and new Global Institutes, and faster clinical trial and medicine approval pathways.
- Financial sustainability via a value-based approach focused on getting better outcomes for the money we spend and clearing deficits through annual productivity gains, multi-year budgets, and innovative capital investment models, alongside “Patient Power Payments” linking funding to patient experience.
For more information go to https://www.carnallfarrar.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/250701_10YP_snapshot-1.pdf