An OVID Health article by David Talbot
The Government is launching its long-awaited 10-Year Plan for the NHS. Will it โfundamentally rewireโ the health service, as the PM and Health Secretary will say later today?
From National to Neighbourhood
At the core of the 10-Year vision is to fundamentally remodel the NHSโ current behemothic, command and control structure to smaller, localised, personalised and preventative models of care. Keir Starmer will announce the creation of 200 new โneighbourhood health centresโ, which will house services traditionally offered in-hospital settings to end the current model of โhospital by defaultโ.
This announcement has all the hallmarks of IPPRโs Christopher Thomas, on secondment to DHSC, who called for such a model in 2020.
Regulatory Alignment
ย The improved alignment between NICE – National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to fast track drugs is welcome, but not new. The March 2025 Action Plan to reform regulation already announced the initiative. It signals the Governmentโs commitment to creating a more agile, proportionate and innovation-friendly regulatory system – but it must be balanced with the essential requirement for evidence and patient safety.
Thereโs an App for That
Health Secretary The Rt. Hon. Wes Streeting MP views increased use of the NHS app as โa game changerโ. An improved app will be the โfront doorโ for the NHS with the โMy Companionโ tool directing patients to trusted sources of health information, and the โMy Choicesโ function listing local pharmacies, GPs, data on local elective operations and patient ratings.
Much like how the COVIDย app provided real-time data to the postcode during the pandemic, this initiative truly has the potential to revolutionise, democratise and equalise healthcare.
Resetting the Doctor-Patient Relationship
Some of the proposals are truly radical, and patient-centric. Pilots will be rolled out whereby patients can provide feedback on whether their standard of care was good enough for their local hospital to receive full payment. If patients say โnoโ, 10% of the fees from the treatment will be allocated to a regional improvement fund.
This initative continues a โgolden threadโ throughout the 10-Year Plan of resetting the relationship between patients and doctors. The NHS, as NHS England CEO James Mackey has said, too often sees patients as an โinconvenienceโ.
A Dispiriting Life Sciences Landscape?
These announcements, though, are in the context of a dispiriting landscape for health and life sciences in the UK. The Industrial Strategy, published last week, contained 4 out of 6 announcements for the sector that had already been announced.
And the Life Sciences Sector Plan has been delayed for weeks because industry, The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) and Government (still) cannot find agreement on VPAG.
Article originally published on LinkedIn on 3rd July
Image credit: https://resolution.nhs.uk/2025/07/03/nhs-resolution-welcomes-the-10-year-plan/
