GPNs and community nurses to play role in ‘neighbourhood health teams’

General practice nurses (GPNs) and community nurses will help make up ‘neighbourhood health teams’ across 43 services in England, the government has confirmed.

The government has for the first time outlined details of how its new neighbourhood health services will be run – including the areas involved in its first ‘wave’ and specifying the type of nurses involved.

The services – initially being rolled out in 43 areas with higher deprivation and longest wait times – will first focus on supporting people with long term conditions such as diabetes, arthritis, angina, high blood pressure, MS, or epilepsy.

As the programme grows, the government said services will expand to support other patients and priority cohorts.

Each of the 43 areas will be allocated a programme lead – which the government previously suggested could be a nurse.

The leads have been asked to use ‘general practice as the cornerstone’ to bring together a range of professions and develop a ‘neighbourhood health team’.

In the 10-year plan for the NHS published in July, the government said ‘nurses’, alongside other professions including palliative care staff and doctors would be among those teams.

Now the government has confirmed that this includes both community nurses and GPNs – as well as hospital doctors, social care workers, pharmacists, dentists, optometrists, paramedics, social prescribers, local government organisations and the voluntary sector.

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The first wave of services has been supported by £10m from the government and began on Tuesday, with the ambition to scale up more services over the course of the next year.

This first wave will cover 43 sites across England, from Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly in the South West to Sunderland in the North East.

The government has said it hopes in future to have a nationwide network of neighbourhood health services which will bring more acute services like post-operative care and rehabilitation, into the community.

Speaking at The King’s Fund yesterday health and social care secretary, Wes Streeting, described the plan as ‘a big departure from what’s gone before’.

‘Dare I say it, we will make some mistakes along the way. This is people from different organisations, behaving as one team, and those organisations behaving as one system. This is an entirely new way of operating for the NHS,’ Mr Streeting told attendees.

How will the services be organised?

GP leaders will be ‘pivotal in shaping and delivering these new services’, according to the government, and will be supported to deliver it with two new contracts from 2026.

Under the new voluntary neighbourhood health contracts, GPs can choose to be part of either a single neighbourhood or multi-neighbourhood provider.

A single neighbourhood will deliver enhanced services for around 50,000 people , although a multi-neighbourhood provider will serve around 250,000 people.

Changes needed in social care

Mr Streeting also used his appearance at The King’s Fund to stress the government’s commitment to social care, describing the sector as ‘important in its own right’.

He outlined the work that Labour had done in its first year to promote social care, including expanding the social care allowance and legislating for the first ever fair pay agreement on social care.

The minister added that there is ‘more to do’ in social care, and said planning for the future was key to success in the sector.

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A commission into adult social care is currently being led by Baroness Louise Casey who is examining what short- and longer-term reforms are needed to stabilise the future of the adult social care sector.

The government  has previously said that long-term social care reform is unlikely to happen before 2028, something nursing and sector leaders have criticised as too slow given the rising pressures of social care nursing staff.

New NHS league tables 

Yesterday the government also launched a new ‘league table system’ for NHS trusts.

Every trust in England will be ranked quarterly against new standards across urgent and emergency care, to elective operations and mental health services.

From next year, the government will introduce a ‘new wave’ of foundation trusts to give best-performing trusts ‘more freedom’ to shape their services around local needs.

Trusts facing more challenges will be given ‘enhanced support’ from the government, with senior leaders being held account through performance linked pay.

Steph Lawrence, chief executive of the Queen’s Institute of Community Nursing (QICN), described the categories in the league table framework as ‘unhelpful and unclear’ and warned they could risk confusion among healthcare professionals or the public.

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‘Furthermore, it will be extremely difficult to measure progress in some areas, particularly community services, where there is a lack of established key metrics.

‘We need to understand what these assessments will be based on, and how they will reflect the reality of service delivery on the ground,’ Ms Lawrence said.

In July, the health secretary said nurses will continue to leave the profession unless they feel ‘genuinely recognised and rewarded’ for the work they do.

An exclusive Nursing in Practice report, published earlier this year, found that more than a quarter (28%) of general practice nursing staff were considering leaving their jobs within the next 12 months.