Government announces plans for neighbourhood health service

The Government has announced its latest plans for a neighbourhood health service to be introduced as part of its 10 Year Health Plan.

The plan comes as part of the government's wider Plan for Change, and is expected to see millions more patients across the UK being treated closer to home.

The move will see the introduction of neighbourhood health centres staffed by nurses, doctors, social care workers, pharmacists, dentists and palliative care staff, and will reduce the need for people to travel to hospital to receive care, particularly in areas where local services are less readily available. 

Community health workers and volunteers will be encouraged to trial a variety of schemes to further refine the service, such as door-to-door visits to help detect early signs of illness, in a bid to reduce pressure on GPs. 

Current plans for the health service will see centres eventually opened to 12 hours a day, 6 days a week in local communities, and will offer additional, holistic care through housing employment support and debt advice services, which have a profound effect on mental and physical wellbeing. 

Some of the wider effects of the 10 Year Health Plan will see more GP training, faster phone call responses through digital telephone lines, and new contracts to allow GP practices to cover wider geographical areas. 

Hospital use has significantly reduced in areas where trials have already taken place. In Derby, access to neighbourhood teams led to 2,300 fewer category 3 ambulance callouts and 1,400 fewer short hospital stays among the over 65 population within a year. 

In a statement today, Andy Burnham said he welcomed the move. "Bringing health services closer to home through neighbourhood centres and teams is the approach that is already the driving force of our Live Well mission to transform how we deliver public services - putting practical support back into every neighbourhood, working with communities to tackle health and social inequalities, and breaking through the barriers to getting and holding down good jobs," he said.

"Building on a decade of partnership work, we will join the dots between support services and the community, voluntary, and faith organisations that our embedded throughout our city-region. That is how we will fix the foundations of life, improve health and get people into work."