The 10 Year Health Plan for England: opportunities and challenges

A neighbourhood health service will bring care closer to home, helping to deliver the Government’s shift from hospital to community. As part of this, Neighbourhood Health Centres will be established in every community. These will bring together the NHS, local authority and voluntary sector services, to help meet the needs of local people.

For this to happen, the share of spending on hospital care will decrease. Instead, there will be greater investment in care provided in the community.

This shift aims to improve care for people at the end of life. Community-led advice and support will enable more people to die at home. Local care teams will collaborate closely with care homes and paramedics to share care plans, helping to prevent unnecessary trips to Accident and Emergency. Community teams will include hospice outreach staff and palliative care professionals.

We know that many at the end of life want to be cared for at home and avoid being admitted to hospital, so a shift to neighbourhood health is welcomed. Our vision for a new ecosystem for palliative and end-of-life care would help to deliver this move to community care.

Questions remain over exactly how the hospice sector will be integrated into Neighbourhood Health Centres and what any funding models will look like.

Over the coming weeks, we will be speaking to health leaders to get answers to these questions.

Sue Ryder is already well placed to support this move to community care, with 80% of our care being provided in people’s homes.

The plan sets a target that 95% of people with complex needs will have an agreed care plan by 2027. These care plans will outline people’s treatment as well as their wider needs. They will be created together with patients and carers.

Positively, the ambition is for patients to be able to draft and view their care plan through the NHS app. People at the end of life will be one of the first groups to be supported to create care plans.

Far too many people nearing the end of life lack a clear plan for their future care. So we are happy that they will be prioritised. Care plans have been shown to lower rates of hospital deaths and improve quality of care. They also reduce how often people are admitted to hospital as an emergency in the last months of life, when it could have been avoided.

We have called for the creation of digital tools to help with advance care planning. So we welcome the use of the NHS app to write care plans.

We know that many healthcare professionals lack knowledge around palliative and end-of-life care. We are concerned that these plans may not be good enough when it comes to outlining people's care choices.

To address this, specialist palliative care staff must be involved in creating plans where needed. Healthcare staff must be better trained in palliative and end-of-life care options, and starting conversations around care at the end of life.

The Government will release more details on how the plan will be put in place over the coming weeks and months.

At Sue Ryder, we will be working closely with the Government and healthcare decision makers to resolve unanswered questions, and ensure the plan is implemented in a way that can improve care for all terminally ill people.