Nurses should ‘lead’ neighbourhood health services, suggests Streeting

Nurses should be ‘leading’ neighbourhood health services as part of a radical reform of the NHS, the health and social care secretary has suggested.

Mr Streeting said the NHS ‘should not be bound by traditional expectations of how services should be arranged’ and that incoming reforms would have ‘radical implications’ for health services, as the government shifts care closer to home.

His comments came during a speech at the NHS Confederation conference in Manchester and ahead of the government’s highly anticipated 10-year plan for the health service.

Related Article: New social care minister for Scotland

The health secretary said he was ‘open to’ some acute NHS trusts providing primary care services, as well as community services.

‘Whatever services will enable them to meet the needs of their patients in a more integrated and efficient way,’ he said.

Mr Streeting went on to suggest that nurses should be at the forefront of the government’s plans for neighbourhood health – first mooted in the Labour Party’s election manifesto as a way of delivering more care within local communities.

He continued: ‘There is no reason why successful GPs should not be able to run local hospitals, or why nurses should not be leading neighbourhood health services.

‘As plans are drawn up for the new neighbourhood health services, I’ll give our nation’s mayors and local government leaders a seat at the table.’

Neighbourhood health service was set out in the government’s manifesto as part of a drive to deliver more care within local communities and to shift resources to primary care and community services.

Related Article: RCN and ICN agree partnership to ‘boost’ nurse education

The manifesto, published last year, had said: ‘The principle of integrating health and care services will improve the treatment patients receive. We know that more of this care needs to happen outside hospitals.

‘Therefore, we will trial Neighbourhood Health Centres, by bringing together existing services such as family doctors, district nurses, care workers, physiotherapists, palliative care, and mental health specialists under one roof.’

And neighbourhood health guidelines published by NHS England earlier this year said the approach ‘reinforces a new way of working for the NHS, local government, social care and their partners, where integrated working is the norm and not the exception’.

More information on neighbourhood care is expected in the government’s 10-year health plan.

Related Article: Public urged to see practice nurse before travelling amid high enteric fever cases 

Deputy chief executive of the Queen’s Institute of Community Nursing (QICN), Steph Lawrence, said the charity welcomed ‘the comment about nurses potentially leading neighbourhood services made by the secretary of state’ and that she believed practice nurses and district nurses were best placed to do so.

‘I would suggest that it is nurses that understand their communities and neighbourhoods best – e.g. general practice nurses and district nurses – and really welcome this suggestion that they lead this work, obviously in partnership with other health professionals,’ said Ms Lawrence, who is due to take over as QICN chief executive from Dr Crystal Oldman next month.