BREAKING: Nurses to staff neighbourhood health centres under 10-year plan

Nurses will staff the government’s new neighbourhood health centres alongside health visitors, palliative care staff, doctors and other healthcare professionals, the Prime Minister has announced.

Sir Keir Starmer has this evening outlined early details of the highly anticipated 10-year health plan for the NHS, which is expected to be published in full tomorrow morning.

The Prime Minister said the health system must ‘reform or die’ and described the plan as ‘fundamentally’ changing how healthcare is delivered across the country.

‘That means giving everyone access to GPs, nurses, and wider support all under one roof in their neighbourhood – rebalancing our health system so that it fits around patients’ lives, not the other way round,’ he explained.

Early details on the plan outline the launch of a Neighbourhood Health Service which includes new neighbourhood health centres – set to be open 12 hours a day, six days a week and based within local communities.

The government said the centres would move historically hospital-based services, such as diagnostics, post-operative care and rehab, into the community, and will also offer services like smoking cessation and weight management.

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‘These neighbourhood health centres will provide easier, more convenient access to a full range of healthcare services right on people’s doorsteps – stopping them from having to make lengthy trip to hospitals,’ the government said.

It added that neighbourhood teams would ‘include staff like nurses, doctors, social care workers, pharmacists, health visitors, palliative care staff, and paramedics’, as well as community health workers and volunteers.

The change comes as part of Labour’s shifts from hospital to community, treatment to prevention and from analogue to digital which are central to its 10-year health plan.

Community nurses should be ‘in the driving seat’

Royal College of Nursing (RCN) general secretary and chief executive Professor Nicola Ranger said the government ‘needs nursing staff in the driving seat’.

‘The Prime Minister must back up his plan with a clear one to turn around the shortage of nurses in all local communities,’ she said. 

Professor Ranger acknowledged that moving care away from hospitals is ‘urgent and necessary’, but said this will ‘prove impossible’ while the community nursing workforce is ‘depleted and undervalued’.

‘Crucial teams of district nursing and health visiting staff, who keep patients well and safe at home, have fallen by thousands in the last decade or more,’ she added.

‘A thriving community nursing workforce is the government’s best friend here and patients know that too. We will work with the government on a fresh, detailed and funded plan to recruit and retain neighbourhood nurses of the future.’

Nurses could ‘lead’ neighbourhood health services

Health and social care secretary Wes Streeting said the plan would ‘turn the NHS on its head’ and deliver ‘fundamental changes’.

‘By shifting from hospital to community, we will finally bring down devastating hospital waiting lists and stop patients going from pillar to post to get treated,’ he said.

Mr Streeting reiterated the government’s ambitions to create ‘an NHS truly fit for the future, keeping patients healthy and out of hospital, with care closer to home and in the home’.

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Earlier this month, Mr Streeting suggested that nurses should be ‘leading’ neighbourhood health services and that the NHS must ‘not be bound by traditional expectations of how services should be arranged’.

‘This must not be a money saving measure’

The chief executive of the Nuffield Trust, Thea Stein, said the plans were about ‘expanding and embedding’ the work that is already taking place in many places across the NHS.

‘Top quality community services – like district nursing, end of life care and rehabilitation – are, in pockets of the country, already working around the clock to fit care around patients’ needs, working closely with GPs, charities and council staff,’ she said.

Ms Stein added that a neighbourhood approach was ‘essential’ to removing the ‘disjointed ways of working’ which required patients to join up their own care.

But she warned that any changes would need ‘leadership from politicians and NHS staff’ to ensure neighbourhood care services ‘become more than a few passion projects’.

‘Better community services is the right aspiration – siloed care is often frustrating and distressing for patients and contributes to waste. But let’s be under no illusion: this is not a money saving measure,’ she added.

The plan follows Lord Ara Darzi’s diagnosis of the challenges facing the NHS last year.

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Lord Darzi found the health service to be in a ‘critical condition’ with weak productivity, low staff morale and a deterioration in the health of the nation.

And he raised specific concerns around the falling investment in community services and an ever-shrinking nursing workforce.

This is a breaking news story, more to follow.